Book Six: Steel
by Sokkas Instincts 2
Summary: Sequel to Cinder. The battel against Fallen Fire continues and the new avatar isn't being cut any slack. With gAang's darker past being revealed the world is going to be anything but crazy. Numerous OC present.
1. The Prelims

AN: Okay, so this is the first chapter of Book Six or Steel. This story is a 200 years later scenario and I would highly recommend that you check out Book Five before you start to read this or else you are going to be very lost. There are numerous OC characters here and the Gaang won't be coming into the story until the end, so if you don't like that please reconsider! As for how they're still around 200 years later, let's just say they were frozen in an ice burg for all intensive purposes. Not really but it's a surprise! I worked hard on the last story and will do the same here, as well as my own version of book three, which you might want to check out if you're looking for something Aang centric. I might not have started it yet so please wait a little while. If there are three or more chapters here I'm pretty sure that I will have started on it then so feel free to read it! Please don't skip this one though as you might like it just as much. It would also be great if you could review as I have an inferiority complex and I'm going to start thinking my writing is crap if you don't! Anyway, here ya go!

Chapter One: One the Road Again

Saiben had been at the Northern Air Temple for a couple of weeks now and his training was progressing quickly. With the help of the mindset and the encouragement he got from everyone he was advancing his air bending skills at an astounding rate.

This suited Seizu just fine as she was hard pressed to go anywhere without getting some help from one of the air benders. It wasn't that they didn't like here, it was just that she had the same effect on them as she did on other people. Just her breathing was enough to scare some of the more skittish ones. One the other hand, she was in even better shape than she had been back in the Fire Nation.

It was for this reason she had started to try and talk Saiben into leaving for a little bit. This was shot down, as they both knew that the faster Saiben became a fully realized avatar the sooner he could take Fallen Fire down. At the rate he was learning though he'd have to leave soon to start on the other elements.

Narik was just as curious as he had been when Saiben had first met him. His thirst for knowledge of the outside world was insatiable and he questioned Saiben constantly on how things worked outside the temple.

On a particularly question filled practice Saiben finally stopped Narik when he finished up on one of his katas and finally got in one of his own questions, "Narik, why don't you just go out and see the world for yourself?"

Narik blushed a little and rubbed the back of his neck before he answered, "Well, I think it's kind of obvious that I'm really curious and pretty much every person here is in agreement that I'd wind up doing something stupid. I can't really help it though. Your world is so much interesting than this one!"

"What if someone went with you?"

"Never really thought of that. But the elders usually don't exactly like us wandering down from here whenever we feel like it and to make it to the closest town without flying would take a long time so the preparation is too much of a pain in the but to actually just get up and go."

"Well, what if I could make a reason for you to go?"

"What are you thinking?"

"Well, I think I'm good enough now to try some Airball. If I made the team, then I'd have to go to the championship and that's in another temple isn't it?"

"You're a genius Saiben! One problem though, we only send one team, so your chances aren't that good."

"You're forgetting that I have a personal trainer!" Narik gave him a confused look and Saiben explained, "You, it's still airbending, so you can still teach me!"

"I take back what I said, you're a super genius!" Despite his age Narik always acted over the top, which made him seem immature. It only showed when he was happy though. When he was serious on occasion you would never guess the juvenile side of him.

The next day Saiben brought Seizu to the Airball pitch with little effort and put her on top of the post in front of one of the nets.

Once he had her stranded there he flew back down to Narik to begin his instruction, "Okay, you'll notice that the ball we use is hollow with six equally spaced holes on it. These allow us better control of the air currents around the ball. We manipulate these and the air currents in the posts to control where the ball goes. Because of the way it bounces around in the posts, it's extremely difficult to tell where it's going to go so you can set up air currents in the posts to direct the ball and herd it away from your goal and towards the oppositions."

"Okay, what's illegal?"

"You can't have the ball above the posts for more than five seconds. The last team to have control of the ball gets the penalty. The other team gets possession and gets to control the balls entry. You also aren't allowed to strike an opposing player with your body. You can hit him with an air blast, but only if you're above him. Any other scenario and you're out of the game for five minutes."

"That doesn't sound too hard. All you have to is jump and knock the other players out then smack the ball towards the goal and you're done!"

"No because the entry of the ball gives a huge advantage to whoever has it. They immediately control the currents around the ball and can have it at your net extremely quickly if you aren't careful. It's also very easy for the teammates to support his currents and take them over if he's taken out. It's also common practice to use the ball as a projectile and knock out the other players with it."

"So hitting someone else is illegal but hitting with a ball that's going insanely fast isn't?"

"Exactly! So, are you ready to try?"

Saiben jumped up onto the posts at the other end of the court and Narik threw him the ball. He caught it and started to make it float in his hand. Once he got the hang of that he let the ball drop down into the posts and tried to keep it stationary which he found difficult.

When Narik saw him trying to keep the ball still he yelled up at him, "Rule of thumb: never have the ball still! The faster its moving the harder it is for the other team to get control of it!"

With that in mind Saiben started to bounce the ball around the posts while maintaining control of it. After a few minutes of doing this he had it going very quickly and was still maintaining very good control of it. A few minutes of this and Narik came to explain how to make the ball's entries count. He took the ball and showed Saiben where the ball was usually blasted to begin with and why.

Most of it came down to how well you could guess how the ball was going to bounce. If it bounced in another direction and it hit one of your herding currents it would slow down and let the other team get control of it.

Narik started drilling Saiben on the standard entries and didn't let him stop until he had it going so fast that he was able to knock Seizu off the post even when she caught it. After that Saiben decided to try something and switched on the mindset. With that on he started to choose different paths for the ball. With the mindset on it was far easier to direct the ball and he had it blasting around the court like he was a pro.

When Narik saw him doing this he ran and came back with a bag full of chalk balls. He told Saiben to try and hit them without violating the rules. He then tossed them into the air and Saiben tried to launch the ball out of the court and shattered the first when it was still going up. In next to no time at all the air was dusty and the ball was back into the posts and bouncing around again.

When Narik called Saiben down he was positively beaming, "You're a natural! Well I guess that shouldn't really be a surprise, but that was still fantastic! I'll try and get you onto one of the teams and you can start practicing tomorrow!"

After the practice Saiben headed towards the council chamber to have what he hoped what he was the last strategy meeting about Fallen Fire. Once he got there he greeted everyone and awaited Shunso's arrival. He came running into the room a minute later and bolted the door with a panicked look in his eyes. A moment later there were numerous audible thumps on the other side of the door.

He turned and sheepishly explained his actions, "Hit the lemurs with a pie."

Jiakka gave his warm laugh and began the meeting once he managed to stop laughing, "Okay, you'll have to warn other people about that. On to more serious matter now. I've got an update on our mobilization. We have nomads in every major city in the Earth Kingdoms at every level, a few in the Water Tribe colonies, three informants at the North Pole, two at the South Pole, and five in each province of the Fire Nation.

We're currently trying to get together enough of us to put squads in the South Pole and two of the Fire Nation provinces. We already have a fair numbers of people in the Earth Kingdom cities in case something is tried there. There are already groups in most of the Fire Nation slowing down Fallen Fire activities as much as they can. There aren't any moves being made in the North Pole so we only have our informants there."

Saiben put forward the question that he had the last two meetings they'd had, "Okay, is our alert system any faster?"

Shunso answered this question, "We have improved it. We've been in contact with Krix and he's sent us some dragon fly-humming bird cross that's about as fast as they come. They can go faster than the falcon horses as long as there isn't a strong wind coming at them."

"That's good. Fallen Fire doesn't move slowly so the first hour or so will make or break the fight for us."

Jiakka started again with another report, "The Western Temple has informed us that the High Chancellor has the capitol city crushed because of fear. Anyone who opposes him just disappears with a trace."

"That sounds like him alright. Do we have anything about my family?"

"Yeah, your grandfather has made them a guest cabin down in the ravine next to his house. They've had a couple visits from the authorities, but nothings happened. Any other concerns? No? Okay this meeting is over." Jiakka concluded the meeting and Saiben waited for everyone to leave so he could have a word with Jiakka.

Once everyone else had left and Shunso had been chased away by lemurs that had come through one of the windows Saiben went to ask his question, "Elder Jiakka, when is the Airball tournament?"

"Why do I get the feeling you're going to be joining one of our teams?"

"Well, I feel that I owe Narik something and he would have to come with me so, I was just wondering when."

"You can be manipulative when you want to can't you?"

"Can you please tell me so I know how long I have to practice."

"We were going to have our selection games at the end of this week actually."

"Thanks, I think I'm going to need and go practice now."

Jiakka gave a laugh at Saiben's problem and left through the window to try and rescue Shunso from the lemurs.

The next day Narik came and told Saiben he had found a team for him to join. Narik had actually had a bit of a choice as to which team to pick as a couple were willing to take Saiben on. Narik told him who was one each team and Saiben chose the one he though had the best chance.

He met up with his new team shortly thereafter and they explained the situation between the other teams. They were up there in their temple's rankings but there were a few other teams that had a bigger reputation than them. Once the introductions were done they went out to the Airball pitch and had a scrimmage to see Saiben's skill level.

Shortly after that they were drilling him on making the perfect entry for the ball. Because he used the mindset, he could pick whichever path he wanted and that meant that there was a much bigger chance of them scoring right off the bat. Once they had practiced that enough they had Saiben try it again and had some of the other team members try to stop him. Saiben promptly circled their currents and shot the ball through the goal.

After that they had a real scrimmage and Saiben found out something very discouraging. Whenever he had control of the ball it would become extremely obvious that his strength in airbending was easy to surpass. The ball was continually blasted off the course he wanted by the other team members who would add kinks to his currents that would make him lose control.

After he got so fed up with that he called a stop and called them together to get some advise, "Okay, how do you block those kinks, they're driving me crazy!"

"Only us and one other team use that. You have to just go with the flow. Use the added current to blow the ball into another current you've set up. Other teams just try and blow the ball off course, so it's not hard to compensate for that. Just add more force in the direction its coming from." Once he learned that Saiben was more proficient at it. The ball was still taken from him a fair amount, but the same was true for the rest of the team.

By the weeks end they had everyone worked into their strategies. Saiben was goalkeeper as he could deflect the ball well when it was launched at him and he was the best at blasting the ball in the beginning. Another two members were excellent at making kinks and were positioned a third of the way up the court. The remaining three members where the offence and were excellent at infusing Saiben's support into their own currents.

There were five other teams in the temple they had to compete with. It didn't matter how many wins and losses you had though because the Elders judged how you played and sent the one they thought was the best. The first team they played was the other team that Saiben could have been apart of. Their airbending was strong but they went down before the kinks, which made Saiben thankful he hadn't chosen them, as he would've been completely blindsided by his own team's tactics.

The next two teams they played were repeats of the first with scores varying slightly but always in Saiben's favor. By the beginning of the fourth game Narik's smile was practically splitting his head in two. It promptly disappeared, as the next team they had to play was the one that used the kinks as well.

Saiben got into his position and hunkered down for a brutal game. They lost the pie toss and the other team got the ball to start. In an unconventional move it was blasted right at Saiben at high speed. Saiben didn't want to get hit this early in the game so he jumped over it and simultaneously blasted it down so it bounced off the goal post and back down into the forest of posts. The rest of his team took over and the ball was consumed in a titanic battle that had it blasted all over the court, very rarely leaving the posts.

This continued until Saiben finally got fed up with the stalemate and blasted on of the other team that had come to near the goalpost. He was spun around and fell off his perch all the way to the ground. Now that Saiben's team had the upper hand the ball made a definite path for the other goal. A moment later the ball was through the goal and Saiben was cheering his lungs hoarse. He was the only one and stopped once he noticed this.

"You know there's still twenty minutes of the game left right?" Someone asked.

Saiben blushed a deep red and tried to focus back onto the game. It was a good thing he did as the other team tried something similar to what they did last time. This time they bounced the ball off a single post and then right at Saiben. Also like last time, the whole team moved forward to take advantage of any hesitation Saiben had because of the speed of the ball. Instead of moving this time though, Saiben grabbed it and sent an air blast directly in front of him and took off in its wake. The other team was left standing stupidly as he whizzed by them and jumped through their goal once he had their goalkeeper in the chest with the ball.

Once again there was no cheering. This time though it was because everyone was dumbfounded. None of them had ever seen anything like that ever happen before. Saiben stood where he was on the ground and looked at the zombified group around him. He jumped back up and left the ball in the hands of the other goalkeeper that was still stooped over a little because of the hit Saiben had given him. He hadn't meant to hit him that hard, but he hadn't really been hurt so Saiben just thought it had become part of the game.

Once everyone had recovered after a few minutes the game continued and Saiben's team was eventually handed a shut out victory. Now the crowd went wild, at least most of them. Anyone who had been a fanatical fan of the other team was acting sullen.

Shortly after Jiakka came to the front of the crowd to make his decision, "Well, I think that you all know who I'm going to choose to represent us. Captain Hino's team will be going to the Eastern Air Temple to represent us. Since our elders are prone to a bit of procrastination now and then, you'll be leaving tomorrow."

Shortly thereafter Narik showed up on Saiben's shoulder again with a big rucksack on his shoulder and a bag of money clinking on his waist. When Saiben gave him a weird look Narik explained his thinking, "Well, they prepare everything they need well in advance for the trip there so I snagged some and now I'm ready to go."

"You want to leave ASAP don't you?"

"Quite possibly."

"Okay, give me a couple of hours to find Seizu and get everything together."

"No need. I brought enough food for all of us and the clothes you were wearing when you came here were fixed so you can use them again."

"You know, ordinarily that wouldn't be good thing as it is a school uniform, but we'll be heading towards by the place the bending tournament is being held so this could work." Narik practically bounced away, his smile lighting up his surroundings the way dawn normally did.

Seizu walked up to Saiben when she saw this and started to talk to him, "I knew he'd be happy about getting out of here, I mean, I am too, and this place is a pain in the but to get around. I didn't think he'd be that happy though, it's kinda creepy."

"That's because he took the liberty of getting everything ready for us to leave as soon as the game was over. We could leave in a few minutes actually."

"What are we waiting for!?" Seizu grin suddenly matched Narik's and she bounded off to get her stuff together. Saiben went to get ready much slower than the other two had and told the team captain, and Jiakka what they were doing. Neither objected so he went up to his room and gathered the meager belongings he had amassed since his arrival. A book or two in philosophy, some pieces of wood used in games around the temple, and the glider he had made only a week ago.

He put all of it into a cloth and tied it around his glider. He would have loved to have just flown all the way to the Eastern Air Temple, but flying was out of the question as there was always a possibility that someone saw and that wasn't a good things. The surprise that caused would give Fallen Fire all the opportunity they needed.

Narik and Seizu were waiting at the drop off for Saiben. Narik was hopping impatiently from foot to foot. As Saiben approached Narik's hopping increased in speed so Saiben jogged up to them and gave them the okay and they started down the winding path towards the ground they had lost from view for the past few weeks.


	2. Dirge of the Hours

AN: Yay chapter two. Hopefully better than chapter one. Mind you, the first time around you didn't know what to expect from me so I guess it only makes sense. If you didn't read the last book I strongly advise you to go and read if you intend to keep at this one as you won't get anywhere near as much out of it! I'll post that from now till five after that it's your funeral. Anyway, last book I said that Coron would be getting a much bigger part in this book and that starts now! As far as the title goes, I took the name from a piece of music and changed the first word to dirge for reasons that will become apparent later in. If you can figure out where it came from originally, you can draw parallels because of the lyrics. Thx for reading my notices, please R&R because…well…read all my reasons in Cinder, I'm out of them!

Chapter Two: Dirge of the Hours

Coron was still getting the hang of his body. He still had the cramped up feeling he had been dealing with back in the spirit world, albeit far less. Since his return he had figured out all the basics of how to survive like breathing, blinking and other stuff. He also had most of his motor skills back. His larynx was giving him some problems though. So far the best he could do was make a strangled gargling sound.

Just when he thought he was on to something he felt the ground bump. Surprised by this he went through the forms that would get the ground off of himself and then nothing happened. He panicked because he knew he would need air soon. In his terror he reached up to claw at the earth wall and surprised himself by finding it to be made of fabric.

Once he knew that he tore a hole in it and tried to figure out what was going on. He looked through the hole he had made and found himself inside a cart being drawn by an ostrich horse!

He knew something was wrong with this and tore the rest of the bag off of himself which made a little too much noise. While he was still getting out pf the bag he had been in a head swung down and when it saw him it screamed, AGNI MOTHER OF NERSH MING!!! THE CORPSE IS ALIVE!!"

The man that had screamed was immediately smacked across the back of the head by someone else, "Keep it down. I don't care if it's how late it is, if anyone here's us we'll never get in!"

The second higher voice answered with some stuttering in his speech now, "Yo-you do-don't und-der-stand. The agnied thing is freekin moving! Standing up and taking the agnied freekin bag off!"

"What? You can't be serious. It's probably," The man never got to finish because Coron had caused a spike of earth to shoot up in front of the cart. In slammed to a halt and Coron quickly jumped out of the cart and looked around to get his bearings.

Behind him the two men were recovering, "I told you one of the bodies was alive!"

"Okay, you're right. They probably only wanted us to do this as a test though. Who actually goes around and steals bodies, right?"

His partner gave a nervous laugh before he replied, "Yeah, you're right. They probably planted one of their own to see how fast we were and we just caught him readjusting his position. We should go back and pick him up." They both jumped off the top of the cart and walked back down along the road.

The taller of the two's mouth hung open when he saw Coron and exclaimed, "It's only a kid!" Coron spun around and both of the men were neck deep in the ground before they could blink.

He walked up to them and began his interrogation, "Why were you robbing graves?"

"Look kid, I don't know how we got you in there, but just go home. It was for a good cause."

"One, when someone has you buried up to your neck in dirt, you don't disrespect them, two, tell me what the cause is."

"You don't have me trapped, you're not the only bender around here. I can get out whenever I want!"

"Try it then, you won't be able to." Coron answered smugly.

The man gave numerous strained grunts and groans and eventually fell silent glaring at Coron with a deep loathing which Coron took as his cue to continue, "Okay, now that that's out of the way, tell me what why you were stealing bodies."

"It's initiation. The group uses them to better our race by understanding how the body works."

"Okay, next time go to a morgue, oh wait that's not happening either because you aren't going anywhere!" Coron slammed his hands into the ground and both men felt numerous jabs of pressure being applied to their bodies for a split second. After that, Coron went to great lengths to raise letters from the ground that spelled out what the two had done. After he was done that he made a small ditch along the middle of the road as far as he could go, which was out of his regular eyesight and then walked back down the road towards the cemetery.

Once he reached there he found the crossroads in front of it and started back up the road towards his house. On the way back he paused by a lake and took his first look at himself since he had come back. He almost feinted where he stood because he wouldn't have been able to tell the difference between himself now and when he had first been sent to the spirit world. His hair was longer, though not by too much. Other than that there was no difference. He hadn't grown a single inch, not even by a fraction!

He walked the rest of the way to his house with a stunned expression and only recovered once he had walked up the front steps and realized he had arrived. He had been banking on the fact that his body would have aged to ease his parents into the fact that he was actually alive. He didn't see any other option though and decided to wait the short while till dawn figuring out what he was going to tell his parents when they saw him.

When dawn came and he saw a light was lit in the house he got up and knocked on the door. His father came and opened it, "Yes, what can I do for…you…" After that he visibly started shaking. His mother came to the door shortly after that and her eyes slowly widened until they were practically popping out of his head.

"Mom, dad, I have a lot to explain to you."

"You can't be him! He's been dead for fifteen years!" His mother was on the verge of collapsing and his dad's mind was still absent.

This was not going the way he had planned at all, "I never died! You can check the grave, there's no body." Coron tried to maintain a level voice, which was becoming increasingly difficult. This was just as emotional for him as shocking it was for them.

"How can you not have changed at all?!" His mother's voice we nearing fever pitch and the situation was spiraling out of control.

"Please! Let me explain what happened! It started with that spirit doctor (read book one if you haven't to get this!), he"

"I don't know what you are, but he did everything he could for our son! He worked day and night on the medicine he made to try and keep him alive! I don't care who you are, you don't insult him!"

"But he sent me to the spirit world! That's were I've been for the last fifteen years!"

"No person can go to the spirit world except the avatar and our son wasn't!"

"Did you ever try to teach me how to bend?"

"We weren't blind, he tried and he couldn't!"

Coron was realizing that he was losing this argument as neither of his parents had calmed down yet and he hadn't been able to explain anything to them yet that made any sense, he continued to try though, "I lacked the knowledge to start to bend. Before now an opportunity always came along for you discover your bending. I had a sheltered life so nothing ever came!"

"We gave our son the best in life! Some imposter like you wouldn't get that though." His father spat in disgust.

"_Okay, time for some __shockers__ maybe that'll work._" Coron thought, "I came home from school with a record breaking fever. You called the doctor who said he couldn't do anything. After that you called the spirit doctor in. The first medicine he gave I spit back into his face. I took the medicine like it was a shot of something. I lost the ability to speak near the end. Your last words before I fell asleep, or died as you thought it was 'He looks so peaceful when he's asleep'! I'm your son, you have to believe me!!" Coron's voice had become more and more desperate throughout his speech and by the end he was on his knees practically begging them for acceptance, crying like he was actually eight years old.

"I don't know how you came to know that, but you can't be him," his father's voice was grim and had steel determination in it, "the spirit doctor took his pulse and confirmed his death. He even let us check it. Our _son_, Coron, is dead. Now leave, I don't care what kind of apparition you are, leave and don't torment us anymore."

He closed the door and Coron could hear his mother start to cry behind the closed door. He sat out on the front porch of what should have been his home and cried until he stopped because of exhaustion. He looked up to the sky, intending to curse the world for the hell it was putting him through.

Instead he saw Argent floating there, "You knew there was a good chance this would happen. You have to move on though. It just gives another reason to find the avatar. He could verify what you said. It's the only way I can think of convincing them."

Coron's face told what he wanted to say as he glared up at Argent with hate on his face and argent was taken aback before he recovered and responded, "I'm not trying to be cold. The best thing you can do right now is just leave. Giving them more grief will only make things worse. I can give you guidance for a while, so I'd suggest you use it. You're spirit has grown stronger because of your stay in the spirit world. I can contact you far easier because of it. You're bending should also be stronger. It will wane though so don't become over dependant on it, okay?"

Coron managed a half-hearted smile with his answer; "You can't distract me with something like that, thanks for trying though." Coron got to his feet and started to walk, then he started to go faster and lumps of ground started moving with him. Before long he was racing across the country with mounds of dirt propelling forward with every step, Argent telling him where he should head to have a chance at finding the avatar.

Coron continued across the countryside, his sadness propelling him to even greater speeds. He slowed down as a town came into view. As he entered it the beginnings of an idea crept into his head. He asked Argent to see if there was a bending school in the town. He came back moments later and told him where.

Coron made his way towards the school and entered its lobby to find a thin-faced man instructing a group of children on there first stances.

He waited patiently until the lesson was over and then addressed the teacher, "Excuse me, but I was wondering, does this school have an entrant for the bending tournament?"

"No, none of my students yet realize what it is to be an earthbender." The man answered imperiously.

Coron shivered on the inside, realizing what he might have gotten himself into, but continued never the less, "Well, I don't have a school to enter myself in and I was wondering if you would sponsor me."

"You haven't shown me anything to make me think you ready for something like that, besides, you would still have to enroll in my school and that requires a certain fee." The man said, rubbing his fingers together and giving Coron an odd look.

Coron didn't have any money and decided on convincing him another way, "Ah, but think about the prestige that comes with having the top bender in the world come from your school."

"You're pretty presumptuous. What makes you think you are?"

"This." Coron answered flatly. Moments after that a slab of stone came out of the ground and shaped itself into a perfect replica of the man standing next to him in a couple seconds. Coron then proceeded to show him a trick that Argent had showed only a month before he had left. He searched through the ground and brought together different kinds of minerals. Moments later, an eruption came out of the ground like a stick of dynamite had gone off close to the surface. Coron continued to show what he knew for another minute.

By the time he was done the man's mouth was close enough to the ground that ant-mites could've crawled into it.

"You may have convinced just convinced me, you know." The man managed to respond and make it look like he had shrugged off the show. The smirk on Coron's face made his own shrink and he went to get the papers to accept Coron not his school.

"Show off." Argent muttered once the man had left.

"I needed some way to attract the avatar's attention." Coron stated, "He's bound to be looking for a teacher for earthbending teacher and where's a better place to look!"

"Okay, but you'd better hurry, he'll probably just be passing through."

Set change!

Narik bounded up to the Saiben and Seizu as they were inspecting any of the fruit at the stand they were at for deficiencies, "Hey! Look what I got! Tickets to the bending tournament finals!"

AN: I though the ending was pretty good. You probably see why I had Narik come along now don't you? It also ended it on a happy note, which was needed after the middle part. Writing that sort of thing is a lot harder than I though it would be. Anyway, kepping reading and hopefully reviewing. This story I mean!


	3. Pictured in Blind's Eye

AN: I still haven't seen any if the Day of Black Sun yet! Curse you YTV! Okay, all ranting aside, you can probably tell what's going to happen this chapter by reading the last two, maybe even just the one before this. Well you're wrong! They don't meet this chapter so HA! Crap, a spoiler, oh well. I sort of forgot to mention in the other two chapters that I DON"T OWN AVATAR!! There, nice big letters, I'm not getting banned or sued in any combination there of. Now that I'm done with legalities, please R&R about this story, I really do want to improve my writing and by extension the story. There you benefit by doing so! One more thing, the name won't make sense until a little later.

Chapter Three: Pictured in Blind's Eye

Coron was sitting comfortably on one of the many padded chairs in the meeting room, signing all the forms that were placed in front of him. He carefully scrutinized all of them, as he didn't trust the man sitting across from him farther than he could throw him on his own. He was sure if he used bending a massive distance could be reached.

He signed the last of the sheaf of papers and sat up to discuss his terms of service, "Okay, so all that was for enrollment?"

"Yes, guidelines are very stringent now a days. Eh, I mean they're very strict."

"You probably noticed already, but I'm mature for my age."

"That's putting it lightly." The man scoffed under his breath.

"So you don't need to tell me what words means my defenestrative aspirant."

"Of course, just hearing such things from a child are very unnerving though. Most of the time kids your age are making inane jokes about toiletries and the like. They don't grasp the real feeling behind earth bending. If the did they would progress much farther and faster too. That might not be a good thing for me though, eh?"

"I would agree with you, my verbose friend."

"Could you please stop talking like that."

"You just needed to ask." Coron was a little miffed he had to stop though. The idea of hearing things like that come out of an eight year old's mouth would be pretty disturbing but very funny for the speaker. He also knew that this guy really wasn't too smart. If he had understood what Coron had said to him Coron would have been kicked out already.

Coron decided to ask the questions that were plaguing his mind before the man started up again, "How will we get to the tournament, and when is it exactly?"

"Don't get ahead of yourself. You still have to win the districts challenge."

"And when's that?"

"This afternoon. I filled out the entry for you already."

"Okay, any cashes prizes in the future?"

"Yes, but they're mostly scholarships, so you wouldn't be interested in them."

"Any actual money we can split 25-75. I think you need it more than I do."

"Very kind of you, although you already signed something that says otherwise."

"I pulled a left hander on it, you can check if you want, there isn't much point though. Unlike adults, I actually read everything that's put in front of me."

"So you were faking the poor penmanship?" he asked with an exasperated sigh.

"Yep." Coron replied brightly.

"This is going to be a beautiful friendship." The man sighed while his good mood evaporated.

No more than fifteen minutes later Coron was walking down the main street of the town in the uniform the school had. He had readily agreed to wear, as the clothes he had been wearing were the same ones that he had been wearing in the grave for fifteen years and he didn't think fighting in dress clothes was too good of an idea. Besides, he'd never liked getting dressed up for anything anyways.

They reached a reasonably non-descript building. The only thing that made it stand out was the fact that it was little bigger than the ones around it and it had a colorful sign outside of it that read 'District Bending Challenge! All Students Welcome!'

Coron entered beside his new 'teacher' and took in his surroundings. The building had a high ceiling and a flat area in the middle of it with a hole in the ceiling letting the sun shine through onto the dirt patch that would be were the fights would take place.

"Here's the entrant!" His teacher proclaimed, patting him on the head like he was a baby.

While the person behind the registration counter replied, "Okay, bit young though, aint he?" Coron made a rock hop from the patch of ground they were near and dropped it on his teachers foot, making tears spring into his eyes.

"No, I mean yes, but he's very capable." He managed to choke out well trying to hide his pain.

"What was that for?!" He fumed when they walked away to wait their match.

"I'm not a baby, so don't treat me like one!" Coron replied just as heatedly.

"All right, I'll ease up, but if they see me treating you like an equal it'll just raise questions. Hands off from now on, I promise." He immediately regretted saying that as he got some weird looks from a passing group of people.

The two of them took their seats and watched the matches leading up to their own. Coron knew that he wouldn't have much of a challenge at this level but it was still fun to watch others.

A short time later Coron was called down to the ring where a mean looking teenager awaited him.

"I promise I won't hurt you too much, okay midget?"

"I'd worry more about yourself scrawny." Coron sneered. In the back of his mind he filed away the thought that trash talking was a lot harder than he originally thought, then got into his fighting stance and got ready for what he thought would be the shortest fight in history.

He was right. As soon as the fight started Coron moved forward, sweeping his leg around in a circle. A pillar of rock shot out of the ground so fast it seemed to wink into existence. It sent the teen flying through the air to crash into the stands on the other side of the small arena at a fair clip.

When the cloud of dust settled Coron turned with any of the thrill of victory showing on his face to the ref, "Next?"

The fights went in rounds so Coron didn't actually get to fight two in a row. Once he realized that he walked off with a red hue coloring his face. The time until his next fight was much shorter and he drew it out a little longer. By the time he was in the finals he was ready to fall asleep. He actually gave a loud yawn before the match started and he had to fight the giant trembling teenager in front of him.

The teen tried to lock his feet in place and Coron decided to help him. He submerged himself right into the ground and shot out a few seconds later straight at the kid like a human torpedo! He made contact and after his head stopped hurting a little bit he was declared the winner.

After that Coron and his teacher made for Ba-Sing-Se. They didn't have much time to get there and so circumvented the tourist trap that the Serpent's Pass had become ever since the sea monster that lived there had been captured. A few days later they arrived at Ba-Sing-Se's great wall and were promptly told that the bending tournament was going to be held on the outside of the east side.

They trudged along the seemingly endless wall for the rest of the day and finally reached a massive grouping of tents. They were too tired to actually pitch a tent and just made one from the ground. Coron preferred sleeping on the ground anyway.

When they woke the next day some major bending had been done. There was a small coliseum in the middle of the tents that already had some lines leading into it. Coron looked to his teacher for guidance who just shrugged and moved towards it.

Once they got inside they were sent to a waiting area where they were left to wait until their first match came up. There were plenty of other people in the room with them. Coron considered trying to talk to some of them but gave up once the first one growled at him with chiseled teeth. Coron contented himself with going over various strategies that Argent had taught him and even considered talking to him, but remembered he was the only one who could see and quickly discarded the idea.

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The two cloaked figures made there way along the seventh row, thirteen and fourteen seats in. The seats weren't the greatest, but then again, their organization had paid through the nose for the tickets and they were happy to be this close to their target. They waited patiently for him to appear. They were, of course, miffed they had been sent after an eight year old. Then again, he was the first one to come back after being sent away so it was obvious he wasn't ordinary.

Their patience paid off and he appeared in his first match. It was over fairly quickly and they talked a little about how skilled he was. It was clear he hadn't wasted his time while he was away. By the time the next match came up there were more cheers than last time which forced them to come to a difficult decision. If they waited for him to finish his matches so he wasn't in the public's vision for a moment he would have a following and people would come looking for him. If they tried before he was done their window of opportunity for escaping would be small.

They eventually came to a decision and left their seats after the next fight and made their way towards where the competitors would wait between matches. One got out a small blowpipe and they waited for him too come back from another fight. One of the tensed for a second when they saw him and had to remind himself that he had to be coming back from a match or else escaping would be impossible. Only two or three minutes later he reappeared and they struck.

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Saiben was coming out of the bathroom as no human being could hold it in for the hours he had been sitting in the chair he had been while he was watching the matches. It was also hard to keep down any of the food that was served in the stadium. He turned the corner and saw something that caught his interest.

Two people in cloaks were crouched inside the opening to the entrant's quarters. They sprung into action when the crowd favorite, he was named Coron Saiben thought, came around the corner. The two cloaks shot forward and something shot forward out of one of them and hit Coron. Coron fell and his limp was body was immediately caught by of the two assailants. They quickly looked around for any witnesses. Seeing none, they hurried away.

Saiben was already a short distance from his seat and already his pulse was quickening.

He reached his friends and immediately started to try and pull them out of their seats and explain why he was doing so, "Someone just got abducted, one of the entrants, we have to do something!" Saiben was finding it hard to keep his voice down and sound insistent at the same time.

"When did this happen?" Seizu had long ago decided to just roll with whatever happened around her, life had thrown to many surprises at here for any other type of thinking on the matter.

"Right after his match! These two people in cloaks were waiting for him and as soon as he came out of the arena, whack, out like a light, he never had a chance!"

"Why didn't you just tell security?"

"Do I want attention drawn to myself? NO!" He raised his voice a little and started to get weird looks, so Seizu picked herself up and bodily hauled Narik out of his because he was still to enthralled by the event to notice anything around him.

They dashed out of arena and started to scan every way they could, looking for any sign of the abductors. Seconds later they felt a small tremor to their right and dashed off in that direction, sure that it had come from the Coron's abductors.

AN: Well, they saw each other at least, that's good right? The next time you read about them they'll meet I promise. Something else might happen too, hmm what could it be? Anyway, please R&R, I have a quid quo pro (you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours) policy so it's in your best interest to do so. Really, I mean it!


	4. Best Laid Plans

AN: I'm putting off Saiben's meeting with Coron for a chapter to bring you something special: the first Fallen Fire chapter of the book. Well it had to happen some time and it fits in well chronologically. Yes I think about that sort of thing. It was actually really difficult to do for this book as some chapters used to overlap others and it was very difficult to fix. On a happier note I finally got to see the first part of the Day of Black Sun! Haru looks like Johnny Depp a little with the mustache and everything doesn't he? Only me? Oh well, here's the next chapter.

Chapter Four: Best Laid Plans

Jouku was sitting on a cushion in one of his favorite restaurants when he felt a mild burning sensation start in his stomach.

He knew the feeling; the next time the waitress came by he changed his order, "Could you make my order to go?"

"Of course sir." He didn't hear her, as he was deep in thought. He had been a lot lately.

When his order came he put some money on the table muttered, "Keep the change." And walked out. He made for the closest Fallen Fire safe house he could think of, also trying to think why they would be calling him back. He had thought he would be left alone because of Saiben's disappearance. The only reason he could think of being called on again was because they had a lead on Saiben.

"What were you thinking?!" Jouku though as he turned the last corner and headed up a street that looked the same as any other to a house that looked the same as any other. Once inside he walked to the filing cabinet in the back and pulled out the map of the city, found the glowing safe house on it and headed back out again in the right direction this time.

Once he got to the safe house he walked up to the door and entered and a wave of heat hit him full in the face.

"Why was it always so stifling in these places?" He wondered. He walked and saw that most of the cell was already there, anyone that mattered anyways. No one ever bothered with the grunts of the group, as they usually weren't too bright.

A few minutes later everyone was there and Jericho walked out of the shadows, resplendent in the clothes he had become accustomed to as High Chancellor.

"Well, so begins our greatest achievement ever my friends." Never had that word been used so incorrectly, "The next time I'll see all of you it will be to discuss how to divide up the world! You'll remain in the same groups you were in for stage three and will stay in those groups until the other cell leaders decide where you'll be positioned. Now I don't need to remind any of one, but they don't like us very much as Cordow chose our cell to rule. They will try to backstab you most likely. Not directly, but embarrass you, and by extension me, so don't let it happen!

Rorin's squad will go to the North Pole and meet up with Maelstrom for redeployment. Those guys aren't to bright so you should be okay." There were a few snickers in the crowd because of that comment.

"Dorian, your squad will go to the Earth Kingdoms and meet with the Blind Seer cell. Be very careful. Cordow made them the main cell for research for a reason; they're smart as agni and have twice as much guile so watch it. I'd get in and out as fast as possible, and watch out for anyone in their spirit research division. You go in there you never come out.

"Riley will take Lars' old squad to the South Pole. Be careful, that place is a hot bed of shady activities, even when you take the other half of Maelstrom out of the equation. You should be fine with that though right? You could talk your way out of any situation as long as you don't get your glass jaw broken again!"

Riley now had a loathing so deep for Saiben he felt that it was his destiny to kill him. After what he had done to him, Riley had become the laughing stock of the whole cell. He gritted his teeth and just let the laughter of everyone else build up inside of him. He could use the anger later probably.

When the laughter was over Jericho finished his string of orders while wiping a tear from his eye, "Dorian will head towards the less cooperative provinces with some of our enforcer squads to see if he can make the change their minds. Feel free to do some recruiting while you're there. It'll be easier to keep an eye on some of them if we have a cell extension there.

"Finally we come to you Jouku." Jouku felt every pair of eyes in the room focus on himself. "After the unlucky turn of events the last time you were in the Earth Kingdom, I thought karma would be on your side this time. When Rorin's squad signals the rest of us to start our invasions that will most certainly draw Saiben out. You will be positioned in the Earth Kingdom and will have an ear to the ground to try and pick up his trail which you **will**."

Jouku suppressed a shudder as Jericho continued, "I'll be sending messenger hawks to each of your rendezvous points that explains your presence which of course is looking for yourselves, just as it was here. That ends the briefing for stage four, you're dismissed."

Jouku left the meeting feeling like a lead weight had been added to his shoulders. He was positive that Saiben would be watching for Fallen Fire activity from his new vantage point. With the other two cells of Black Sun moving into the open too it would be impossible to miss which meant it would be impossible for him to not pick up the trail.

Jouku had known about the other two cells for a while now. When he had come back and had spun Jericho the lie of the century he had been debriefed along with everyone else. Jericho had explained a little bit of the next part of the plan and had explained the purpose of the other two cells.

Black Sun had a separate cell for each of the three nations. Maelstrom was situated in the Water Tribes and Blind Seer operated in the Earth Kingdoms. Neither had the name Fallen Fire did, mainly because Fallen Fire used fear to get most of what they wanted, neither of the other two did.

Maelstrom took what they wanted and never left a trace. Blind Seer usually fulfilled their objectives without moving a finger. They could plan every detail and find a way to do what they had to with minimal effort. Everything down to wind speed and direction for a single day was calculated. It was for this reason that Jericho had emphasized caution with them.

The only reason the Jouku really listened to Jericho prattle on was that the more he knew about Blind Seer the better. 90 of hostages were given to Blind Seer and with him heading back to the Earth Kingdom he would have a few chances to get some information. He just hoped Saiben didn't show up to fast and take his chance away from him.

* * *

Jericho's modd was as black as the safe house he was in, which was dim to say the least. If everything was going smoothly, as he was sure it was, he should have been getting the same fuzzy feelings he had when he first cap the avatar. Instead, there was a growing pit of dread in his stomach and he had no idea why it was even there. The only thing he was remotely scared about was the immanent meeting with Cordow.

"Speaking of which." He thought. He went over to the cabinet in the back and put on a different set of clothes. There was no way he would make the same mistake twice (first mistake was in Cinder)!

Just as he had before he made a fireball and had it grow in size until it matched the pit in the middle of the safe house. After that he cranked up its intensity and then placed it in the fire pit. The embers in the bottom flipped over and held it there. Just as he had the other times he had to meet with the haunting Cordow, he jumped into it like a cannonball.

As always, when he opened his eyes nothing changed. The picture of the golden sun was more eaten up by Fallen Fire's emblem that it had been last time, but other than that everything was identical, even Cordow was the same. The small speck of something that was resting on his shoulder last time hadn't even moved.

"You initiated the fourth stage?" Cordow said it like it was a fact, not a question.

"Yes, the squads are currently on route to the other nations."

"Have you been able to keep tabs on the avatar?"

"Yes, though it has been tricky. He became his school's entrant for the bending tournament and is currently in the Earth Kingdom. I had a black file agent trail him and send messenger hawks back every half-week. So far he's doing fairly well, but from the looks of it he won't get much farther."

"That's not good for you. I've had Blind Seer become very active in that area and I don't want them around him. You'd know what they'd do to him if they figured out who he is."

"I can only imagine, I'll have the black file agent bring him home ASAP."

"Very well, your target for the instigation is the Water Tribe ambassador to the Earth Kingdom. He'll be arriving in Omashu in two weeks so make sure your decoy is there as well as some of your best. That's all, then were finished with this one." Cordow motioned towards the golden sun. It had been almost consumed by Fall Fire's emblem (an eye with a black sun in the middle. First seen in Cinder).

Once Cordow motioned towards it the picture's remains were quickly consumed and the insignia of the other two cells appeared. Maelstrom's was two waves crashing coming together like a yin-yang, with an eye in the middle of it. Blind Seer's was a nondescript face with insect like claws surrounding it. They were both at the corners of the other two nations flags.

Jericho bowed to excuse himself and Cordow obliged by bringing Jericho's fireball back into existence. He jumped into it like he had last time and stopped himself a good foot before the wall this time.

Intertwining his own plan into Cordow's would be a little more difficult from now on. It had been Jericho's idea to frame the avatar in the first place. Cordow thought that the avatar was living life like he had his whole life. Now Jericho was going to have to send a look alike to the earth kingdom for the final damning piece of evidence against him. It also had to be someone with considerable skill to make it believable.

He flipped through his list of agents in the black file until he came to his selection. He took out the file and mused at the details it had. He was more than capable, but the disguise would have to be something else as he was a good foot and a half under Saiben.

"That could be worked on though." He thought happily. Jericho quickly changed back into his High Chancellor clothes and walked back out of the safe house. He got up to his office and felt slightly invigorated. Because of this he set his mind on getting the useless hunk of junk that was called a typewriter to work. He hauled it over to his desk and plopped it down, making the legs of the table bend slightly.

He set about trying to type with it as he had a few weeks ago and found he had the same problem, it was jamming constantly. He got a little frustrated with it and started looking at all the pieces that held the thing together.

He eventually came across a loose screw and he tightened it. The feeling of triumph came over him and he knew it was pathetic, but the growing pit of uncertainty was making him grab whatever he could get. He set about typing the letter to each of the other nations so his men could actually get their cooperation.

AN: Please tell me if anything confused you, as this is an important chapter. The other cells will be playing a major role later on so if you don't understand something then I need to get revising this one. Hoped you enjoyed reading it though, I really liked writing it!


	5. First Impressions

AN: Sorry it took so long to get this up! I was having a hard time with the second chapter of book three. Ozai and Mai are really hard to write for. Mai because she doesn't show any emotion, and Ozai, well…read it. You'll understand after. Anyway, the name gives it all away and I think I mentioned something about this the last time I wrote about Saiben. Hope you like it; this is where the book's name comes from!

Chapter Five: First Impressions

The light was failing and Saiben was starting to have a hard time seeing what he was looking for. He didn't exactly know what it was, but he was sure he'd know it when he saw it. They were still heading in the direction the tremor had come from and Saiben was hoping they would see the abductors before the light failed.

The got close to a small rise and slowed down for a short rest. Narik jumped into the air to see if they were close and came down faster then gravity would have made him.

"I don't think they saw me. They're right over the next hill." Narik's giddiness at being outside the Northern Air Temple was wearing down because of the situation and Saiben was glad of it. The last things they needed was Narik acting like a child when they were going after people that were able to take down a powerful bender with little effort.

"Did you see how many there were?" Saiben asked. The last thing he wanted was to walk into a camp filled with cloaked people with shady motives.

"You said you only saw two, so they don't have any reinforcements. There was someone laying on the ground next to them too."

"That doesn't make any sense! They just abducted someone that wasn't done being involved in a public event. Someone is going to notice quickly and they're carrying the deadweight, so a search party could catch up with them. They must have a grudge against the guy for them to go it alone like this." Saiben concluded.

"Or not." Seizu added with a sigh as eight more cloaked figures popped out of the ground around them. Six of them charged forward immediately and pulled weapons from their cloaks as they did so. Narik and Saiben blasted them away so they could get into a better position.

Seizu directed Saiben and Narik and they cordoned the fighters off into three groups. If any one of the groups got too close, one would blast them away while the other took care of the other current.

Seizu went after the closest group first and sent two fire blasts towards the attackers. They both spun around them and continued their charge. Seizu tried a different approach by sending a wave of fire first at knee height then at around the neck level. The attackers jumped the first one and got hit with the second wave in the midriff. Seizu dropped her guard for a second so she could see the damage she'd done, then recoiled as they both continued toward he like they hadn't felt it!

"We need another strategy! These guys are like the Fire Ants!" she yelled at Saiben, Narik wouldn't have any idea what they were talking about.

"Okay, I got an idea!" Saiben said as he repositioned himself slightly, "Blast my air currents…**now!**" Seizu obliged and sent a stream of fire into both of his as he switched where the currents were going. Not only did the fire multiply in power because of Saiben's 'flash fire' trick , but it was shot at blinding speed at the remaining two attackers who hadn't moved yet.

Before any of them could figure what had happened, there was a huge explosion as the fire blasts consumed two of the attackers that had thrown themselves in front of the blast. All fighting ceased for a moment the attack for a second and that was all the time Saiben needed. He switched on the mindset and took a look around.

The two charred bodies where laying on the ground and they were crumbling!

"They're using earth puppets! Those two are controlling them!" Saiben called out to Seizu who was already warding off the new wave of attacks the puppet masters were launching. Narik reacted immediately by leaping in the air and sending air blasts towards the puppets to give Seizu and Saiben an opening to attack the puppet masters.

They took their opportunity and charged, expecting some kind of attack from the only humans they were fighting. Instead, the two cloaked figures turned and ran as fast they could toward where the other abductors were resting. Saiben wanted them to have the element of surprise when they went after the abductors, so he literally ran like the wind, cut them off and blew them backward to Seizu who quickly took them out.

As soon as that happened their four puppets collapsed and Saiben went for a closer look. A great amount of time had gone into sculpting the face as it looked like it was for a sculpture. Most of the puppet was stone so wear and tear would be minimal, but there was a thin line of earth running through every limb and each joint had a ball of earth in it so they could be rotated easily.

There was also a fuse coming out of the chest as well as the back with spark rocks right next to it so it could be lit easily. Saiben was willing to bet there was an incendiary inside the chest. That would be what caused the explosion when the two puppets got hit.

"So what are these things exactly?" Seizu asked when she got to the one that Saiben was examining.

"They're works of genius! They'd be easy to control with bending, made of stone so they can hit hard, plus they have a bomb in them that can also be detonated with earth bending. The fighters themselves might not be very skilled, but their tech is absolutely incredible!" Saiben couldn't help but admire the thing as it was a work of art in his mind, albeit one with devious purposes.

Narik ran up to them and started whispering, "If you're done admiring the mud, the two over the hill are looking shifty. They don't if they should run or not."

Saiben thought for a second then gave his plan to them, "Okay, get the clothes off the puppets that are our sizes. I mean everything, shoes, bracelets, pants, jewelry, everything. If they suspect anything they'll bolt, which means right into the ground." They moved to find a puppet their size and quickly started towards the abductors camp once they had stripped it and put it's clothes on.

The cloak they wore was a light brown, but everything else was a dark green. Every one of them now had a necklace with an emotionless face on it with claws around the edges (uh-oh, what did they stumble on?). They tried to match the shifting walk the puppets had used with Seizu just walking in the back because both Saiben and Narik had to use air bending to replicate it.

Their trick worked as they got right up to them and no move had been made to escape. When they reached the camp though they just found piles of rubble with cloaks on it and Coron nowhere to be found.

Seizu walked calmly back to one of the two puppet masters, picked him up, and proceeded to smack him until he woke up.

"Where are your friends taking him?"

The man didn't seem to realize that when you have a pissed of Seizu staring daggers at you, it's in your best interest to tell her what she wants to know, so he replied, "What makes you think I'll tell you anything?"

"Would you excuse me for a moment?" Seizu asked politely. When Saiben nodded his head the color drained form the man's face as Seizu dragged him behind a near hill and came back out smiling after a few dull thuds were heard.

She continued past Saiben without saying a word and when he caught he asked her with a little annoyance, "You're just going to leave him there?" Just turned her head and gave him a look that said 'do you really want to know'?

"Forget I asked."

"Good idea."

Coron's head felt like it was a bongo. He had to wait for his vision to come together because it was like he was eyes in two separates heads to see with. Once he felt he could get up he did so and looked around.

His heart almost stopped beating. He was in a room made of metal. To make matters worse, it was positioned over a lake, so even if he managed to bend the earth it was resting on, the room would flood.

"Okay Coron, don't panic, just think." He told himself. He looked around the room for anything he could use to his advantage. There was a vase of flowers he saw and then saw that it was only filled with water. Everything else in the room was bolted down so it would be of no use to him.

Next he tried bending the metal, but no matter what he tried it wouldn't budge. Then he started remembering what one of the first things Argent had said to him, "Sheer will power is mostly saved for bending metal _if_ you get that far! Only two have ever done it. The first was Toph and the second was her son so I doubt you'll be able to do it!"

Coron didn't see any other option though. He walked up to one of the walls and placed his hand on it and concentrated. He felt all the little vibration coming through it from everything around it. He must be in some kind of complex because there were an awful lot of vibrations caused by humans.

He didn't have time to think about that though, he concentrated and the metal and slowly started to get a picture in his mind. He saw the impurities in the metal, as he knew there would be. It had become fairly common knowledge a while ago that metal was very refined earth so it should be bendable, just no one was ever able to.

He concentrated on the impurities and tried to bend them, which they didn't respond to what so ever. He tried harder and one of them budged. He was going to need all the will power he had if he was going to get out of here.

He continued his attempts and every time they same thing happened, which was nothing. He got frustrated with the fact that the only thing separating him from his plan was a single stupid wall. With this restriction here he would never be able to find the avatar, he would never be able to stop Fallen Fire from wreaking havoc on the world, and his parents would never believe that he was back.

He needed some way to get rid of all his frustration, and seeing no better candidate slammed his fist into the wall. He immediately recoiled because his fist was now hurting quite a bit. He now felt like the wall was taunting him and he added that to his growing list of frustrations. He glared at the wall and saw a dent in it.

He knew why he had been able to dent it and didn't know why he hadn't realized it earlier. He walked up to the wall again and thought of everything he needed to do and especially of his parents rejecting him, then tried again. The wall gave a little more. He readied himself and struck again, yelling like a wounded animal when he did. The rejection was still too raw.

Saiben and Narik were getting tired with using their shifty walk and stopped when Seizu assured them that they were still a little ways away from the abductors base.

When they reached it all they saw was a nondescript bush on the side of a seemingly random hill in the middle of nowhere. Seizu walked up to it and pushed the bush to one side, revealing a bare patch of earth. Saiben couldn't help but feel a little let down. Seizu took off the necklace she had taken from the puppets and pressed it into the ground and then the ground under them dropped down to form a stair way.

All this was making it very difficult for Narik not to freak out. This was by far the coolest thing he had ever done. They walked down the flight of stairs and just when they didn't think they could see anymore a string of lamps came on when the stairs rose up behind them. They were now trapped in the abductors base.

"Now we really don't have a choice but to find him do we?" Narik asked pleasantly.

"Yeah, but stop smiling, you shouldn't be happy about this." Saiben pointed out, it made Seizu come as close to laughing as she dared in the situation they were in.

The passage way continued on and they didn't see anyone until they come to a metal door. Once again, Seizu took off the necklace, pressed it against the door where the handle should have been and twisted it. The door obliged by swinging inward. Inside there was a short hallway with numerous doors leading off of it (think Lake Loagi turned into a bunker). Saiben decided on waiting for someone to come out so they get directions to where Coron was being held.

They didn't have to wait long as no more than a minute later someone came through one of the doors and Saiben walked up to him to ask his question, "do you know where the new captive is?"

"Yeah, they made a new cell just for him. The Face is really paranoid about him escaping. The cells through the door to your right. Why do you need to know?"

"We're the other part of the unit that helped get him. We wanted to see what all the fuss is about."

"Well, good luck with that. They got serious security in there now. The Face is even trying to get a meeting with the big boss about that guy."

"We'll still try, thanks though."

"Yeah, yeah, if anyone asks I didn't tell you anything stringy, got it?"

"Okay, you don't need to freak out."

Saiben went through the door the man had mentioned, thinking, "Does the cloak make me look stringy or something?"

"No, he's thinks you're a puppet master and what would they normally use?" Seizu explained.

Saiben nodded his head to show he understood. They turned a corner and where met with a solid metal door with two behemoths that would have made Datt (Cinder reference) shrivel back.

"What are you doing here?" One of the giants growled. Saiben never had to answer as the door behind them exploded out ward and slammed the two into the wall opposite and forced Saiben to jump back to avoid being crushed. He tentatively looked around the corner again and jumped back again as nearly fifteen other cloaks flew through the air to smash into the door, followed by two other sets of doors in rapid succession. A boy walked around the corner a moment later as he was wiping his hands together as if he had just got done some hard work.

Coron walked out of the doorway and surveyed his handiwork. There was a giant pile up of bodies and doors smashed against a wall. The occasional groan came from it, so he threw a boulder from the floor at it, just to make sure. He rounded the corner and was faced with three more assailants.

He quickly launched a barrage of rocks at them and had them blown up with a fire blast. He stopped immediately because he knew that there were only earth benders in the facility.

"You're all fire benders?" he asked incredulously.

"Well, not quite." Saiben admitted when Narik showed a little air bending by running around the walls and ceiling. They were hoping the kid would agree to teach Saiben how to earth bend after the display he'd put on.

"You're the avatar, aren't you?" Coron asked and pointed at Saiben.

Saiben was shocked and could barely answer using words, "How?"

Coron gave him a smile, "Because you took my job."

AN: Hoped you liked it. I was going to add a little bit more, but the next chapter would be pitifully short if I did, so actual introduction will be made a little later. Anyway, please review, you know my policy.


	6. Family Matters

AN: This chapter has two major parts to it: one with Saiben and one with Freg. You can guess what's going on with Saiben, but Freg will be a bit of a surprise I hope, so here ya go!

Chapter Six: Family Matters

"Wait, how did I take your job?" Saiben was spluttering and his sanity was threatening to strike.

"You know how the Earth Kingdom got skipped? Well, I was the one who got skipped. I realize that probably only adds to the confusion so I'm going to get us out of here before more Blind Seer morons show up." Coron knew he was adding to the confusion every second he stood there, but the fact that he'd blown three doors right off their hinges wouldn't go unnoticed.

"Why didn't you just leave before this?" Seizu asked calmly.

"Everything's made of metal past those sets of doors. I couldn't get out without a way to reach the ceiling." As Coron explained that he made a pillar of stone rise out of the ground and started a tunnel through the ceiling.

Once he started he lowered a staircase, "You guys coming?"

Saiben followed dumbly with Narik coaxing him along and Seizu taking up the rear to make sure they weren't followed. Once they were out Coron walked a short distance and made another hole in the ground and motioned for them to follow.

"Answering all the questions is going to take some time and I don't want to have to fight more Blind Seer while I do it, so if you wouldn't mind." Saiben finally recovered his wits and went into the hole in the ground.

"Okay, before I start explaining what's going on I could use some light." Coron closed the hole in the top except for an air hole and Seizu made a flame burst to life in her hands.

"Thanks, now for the first weird fact: I'm way older than I look. I'm twenty-three and I'm in my body from when I was eight." This proved to be very weird as it wiped the smile right off of Narik's face.

"Have you all heard of the collapsed Spirit Doctors of the Earth Kingdom?" They all nodded, "Okay, well, one of them was a member of a shadow organization called Blind Seer. He was called to my house when I came down with a record-breaking fever. Well the guy had other ideas than healing me. He spoon-fed me this stuff that tasted worse than sewage from Ba-Sing-Se pressed into one glass. The stuff forced my spirit to leave my body making it a hollow shell.

I was sent to the spirit world and the only reason I survived the trip there was that the avatar spirit protected me. It disappeared once I got there though and went off to it's next reincarnation, which would be you." He nodded towards Saiben who gave him an appraising look "Once I got there the avatar before me, Argent Baguan started to teach me everything he knew. I was stuck there for fifteen years, learning the whole time. We were also keeping an eye on how the world was going because we though that another shadow organization named Fallen Fire had done this to me initially."

"Then I assume you know what they actually did." Saiben said flatly.

"Yes we do. Once we found that out I was sent back a little while later to try and help you out, as well as teach you earth bending. We never got your actual location, just the general area, so I knew what direction you were headed, so I entered the bending tournament because it got me up that way. I was going to start to look for you, then Blind Seer found me."

"Why would they go after you? Who hired them?" Seizu wanted to know who was going to be chasing them now.

"No one hired them, no one can hire them. They take their orders from someone called the Face. He's the one that started the plan to steal bodies. They just got me by accident. That was one of the other reasons I came back. Nersh Ming is getting weaker because of what they're doing and Syh Shen is getting madder and is trying to get to Nersh Ming. If we don't put a stop to that then Syh Shen will get to Nersh Ming and the two will cancel each other out and life will cease to exist." He finished calmly, while trying to keep the panic from his voice.

"So we have to go back in there and totally wipe them out?" Saiben was seriously overwhelmed, though not surprised. He figured you got this sort of thing whipped at you when you were the avatar.

"No, just their labs."

"How do you know all this?" Narik was letting his wonder show which fueled Coron's ego a little.

"On the way out a swiped a few scrolls from one of their labs and their library." Coron stood up and undid the vest he was wearing. It swung out to show around thirty scrolls stuffed inside the lining.

"Allow me to summarize what's on these. Just a warning: you are not going to like it, especially you." He pointed towards Saiben, but Saiben had already assumed there was more bad news, "They're experimenting on the bodies that the spirits have been taken from. Once the spirit's gone the bodies a shell and they put another one of there own member's spirits back into it. They've been stockpiling for years so their numbers are actually quite huge. They've also been saving their members spirits, so everyone that's been a member for the past fifteen years is still there and pretty soon they'll have enough to have a standing army. Add that to the fact that before any of them are actually killed they just leave the body and we have a serious problem on our hands." By the end of his explanation Coron's panic had succeeded in cracking his armor.

"We can destroy the labs, but that won't do much good in the long run since they're bound to have back information stored somewhere." Saiben had switched the mindset on and was trying to think of a way out of the newest mess, "But you said they've been stockpiling for a while so they should stop soon. If they do that Nersh Ming won't get any worse. I think we should just get rid of the bodies and forget all the labs."

"Okay, their morgue is still close." Coron stood up and started another tunnel towards the Blind Seer base. After a minute the tunnel opened into a cavern that smelled like preservatives. There were shelves all over the room, and tucked into each one was a body.

"Well, at least the shelves are wood. That saves us some time." Saiben mused as he stepped down into the room. It wasn't lit with regular torches, but had glowing crystals placed intermittently around the room.

Coron stood next to the door in case anyone came in and Narik stood so he had a line of fire through the door way. Once they were in position Saiben and Seizu started lighting the shelves.

They only got through a few before the crystals abruptly stopped giving off light and the room was plunged into darkness. Saiben and Seizu kept their flames on so they could see and were joined by Coron and Narik a few seconds later. Both had a panicky look in their eyes.

"Something came through the roof when the lights went out!" Coron told them with shaky breathing. A second later they hear some clicking and there was a unanimous vote to get out of there. They sprinted across the room and shot back up the tunnel. Saiben chanced a look back over his shoulder and saw a goblin's face on a centipede's body. They were being chased by Koh.

* * *

Freg was walking around his house impatiently. He had continued to live in the same house after his family had been chased away for the simple reason that he had nowhere else to go.

He was waiting for Kurota to get there. He had sent him letters about what was going on the city and a few days ago he'd received a letter from Kurota that hadn't been intercepted by Jericho. He could tell because hawk didn't have ruffled feathers.

The letter had said that Kurota was coming to see if he could help out at all. Freg was glad of any help he could get since Jericho was ruling with an iron fist and there was very little he could to stop him from getting what he wanted.

* * *

"If everything is in order can I go now?" Kurota was getting impatient. He had been waiting for over an hour for the guards at the city's entrance to let him through. His ID and passport had checked out green, but something seemed to be nagging one of them and they still hadn't let him through.

"Just hold your ostrich-horses mister, we take our job seriously."

"You're going to have a serious hospital bill if you don't hurry up and let me through." Kurota threatened.

"Idle threats will get you nowhere."

"Who said they were idle?" Kurota had a blue flame pop into his hand.

"Calm down old man. You looked like someone that's wanted. We were just making sure you weren't him."

"Well I'm not so I'm going in now," the guard gave a childish look, "_please_." Kurota added.

"All right, you're free to go." The door opened and Kurota walked in with a huff and started towards where he thought Freg was waiting for him. He hoped he remembered where it was. He hadn't been here in a while.

* * *

Freg heard the front door open and slid a mirror around the corner of the room he was in. The image showed Kurota so he walked out to greet him.

Since Jericho had started his iron rule locks had been outlawed so that his police didn't have to waste the element of surprise if they came to get you. Random police checks on houses and bars had also become commonplace. No one was allowed to leave the city without being tailed by on of Jericho's men. You weren't told that openly, but everyone knew it.

"So, how goes the city of the damned?" Kurota cynicism didn't improve Freg's mood.

"What do you think? Everyone's living in constant fear, I'm being worked to the breaking point, and no body has the guts to stand up to the guy!"

"So how can I help?"

"Your reputation can help. I know the people that want to stand up t him but are to scared to check to see if anyone else is. If you start something your reputation will draw more people to our group."

"Won't that attract the High Chancellor's gaze as well?"

"Don't use that title. He didn't actually get appointed so just call him Jericho. Anyways, he won't find out unless we scream it to the heavens. I already have a list of people who would join us if we ask and they're networking to try and find more."

"What is this group going to do?" Kurota was getting interested; he needed something to keep his attention in his old age.

"We'll function the same as Fallen Fire did. We'll sabotage his actions wherever we can without risking exposure. I'm in the police force to so I can tap what he's doing most of the time, so it's not like we won't get any warning." Freg concluded; he had a smile on his face because he was finally able to do something half decent about the plague that was haunting the city.

"Okay, who's on the list?"

"The teachers from Saiben's old school for starters. They also say there are quite a few others in the school board that would join us. I've also managed to find all the police officers who haven't defected. Besides that, just rag tag groups here and there. But they add up so we'll have a fair following unless something blows our cover."

"So, when is our first meeting?" Kurota was impatient to start the wheel moving.

"To start we're just going to have a few people from each group meet with us so we won't draw attention to ourselves. I've set up a meeting two days from now with the superintendent, a few of the police officers and a few people from various other interest groups."

"Good, now where am I sleeping, it's getting late." It was true; the sun had gone down a few hours ago.

"I'll tell you when you drop the act. How you acted around Saiben last summer was a dead giveaway." Freg didn't want any deception present from now on.

"Do you know how my will is set up?"

"That's all that was about? The shallowness wasn't passed on, so forget about it."

"Okay, now where do I sleep?"

Freg just rolled his eyes, "Second door on the left." He pointed towards the main hallway and Kurota walked off and was snoring a few minutes later.

AN: I think this chapter calls for an OMG don't you? What is Koh doing with Blind Seer? What will happen to Freg and Kurota's resistance movement, and what is Saiben going to do about Blind Seer's stockpile? All will be revealed shortly, well most of it anyway. Please review, I feel a little rusty!


	7. Second After Thoughts

AN: Are you wondering about what Koh is doing in our world? Well, not many questions will be answered, I saving it for later. Some will be though, and if your curiosity is really bugging you PM and I'll tell you what I can. You could also review, I'd respond faster to any question that way.

Chapter Seven: Second After Thoughts

It was a dark and stormy night, which meant the crew of the boat Jouku was on were stumbling around below decks like they were drunk. Jouku was leaning quite happily on the side of deck. He had a rope tied around his middle in case a giant wave came.

He liked the feeling of the rain; it's why he was outside in the first place. The rain helped him keep his head clear and gave him the sense of calm he knew he shouldn't be getting. He decided to go back into the ship when lightning started cascading down from the clouds with the same ferocity the rain had."

The inside of the ship had a tense air to it. He could picture the control booth, everyone in it running around like mad men, trying to keep the ship on course and keeping it from capsizing at the same time. He wasn't really concerned though. It was nearly impossible for a ship to capsize. He wouldn't really mind if they got pushed off course either. He didn't relish the thought of starting to hunt Saiben again. The picture of his family came into his mind then, reminding him of why he was doing this.

"Is that a good reason?" he thought to himself. It was true that he would save three people and himself for the price of one. But that one could balance the world and stop Fallen Fire from doing much damage. Would he be able to live with himself knowing that?

He walked up to his room and slammed the door; he needed some time to think. He could just feign hunting Saiben, that way he wouldn't have to report to Jericho and that might keep his family alive a little longer. He'd also be able to try to get some information on them and find out if they had been given to Blind Seer or not. He didn't know what he'd do if they had been. If they had been given to them they were probably dead or worse, but he couldn't let Saiben go until he was sure.

What kind of person would he be if turned his back on his family. They needed him! Then what kind of person would he be if he had the world's hope locked away. The world needed Saiben now.

He groaned, rubbing his head because of the self inflicted headache. He flopped down onto his cot and slipped into a troubled sleep, filled with dreams of his family and Saiben on scales, and the world slowly being burned alive.

Saiben continued running up the passageway, trying to forget the horror that was right behind them. Coron was still in the lead and was praying the worst didn't happen. It did though. A pair of Blind Seer operatives dropped down in front of their tunnel. Coron knew that he couldn't waste any time on them, so he made a side passage instead. Saiben almost missed the turn, but got yanked in by Seizu at the last second.

Coron continued making the tunnels as they ran then it abruptly ended as they ran back into the Blind Seer base. They stumbled into a room that had crystals everywhere and weird designs all over the walls. They continued to run through the room toward the other end, only to find a metal wall. Coron tried to break through it without breaking stride, but fell back once the wall didn't budge. There was solid earth behind it.

"Oh crap, Saiben, you're the avatar, you talk to that thing." Seizu had backed away and pushed Saiben to the front to confront Koh.

When he looked around though, Koh wasn't anywhere to be seen. There was sickly yellow shock of light from the tunnel entrance, then a man walked in. He had long green robes with gold trim. He was bald except for a braid in the back of his head and he had a vicious look in his eyes.

"Listen, everyone keep a straight face no matter what. I read about him in my history class. His name is Koh and he can steal your face if it has emotion on it." Saiben turned to face the spirit.

"I'm famous enough now to get a honorable mention in your history books? I must say I'm flattered." The voice made it obvious the man wasn't human as it was like a toddler having a deep booming voice, you wouldn't match the voice to the body in a million years.

"What are you doing here?" Saiben was making his voice deadpan to help with the emotionless mask he was now wearing.

"You don't have to do that. When I'm in your world I can't steal your face, normally."

Saiben kept the face on just in case, and repeated himself, "Why are you here?"

"My hobby. These good people," he motioned to the growing crowd of Blind Seer behind him, "are being so kind as to help me build my collection, which has grown considerably since I've come here." Koh proceeded to flick through a huge serious of faces in the blink of an eye. Saiben was surprised because he changed his body as well as his face.

"You're the Face aren't you?" Coron asked.

"My nickname, if you will. Now if you wouldn't mind giving back that which you have taken, we can be on our way." Koh held out his hand. It took them all a few seconds to figure out what he meant. Then they all looked at Coron, whose clothes were still bulging with scrolls.

"You're not going to let us go even if we give them back because of what we've seen. There's no point in handing them over." Saiben was getting ready for the fight of his life.

"Not true, not true. No one would believe you to begin with, and you won't try to tell anybody because then you risk you're being discovered." Koh replied calmly.

Seizu flinched for a second, but that was the most reaction he got out of any of them.

Eventually Saiben responded, "How do you know about that?"

"I know a great deal about many things. I know about your escape from your home, your run in with the tame beast, Krix, and I also know that you've been camped out in the remains of one of the air temples."

Saiben almost let out a sigh of relief, Koh didn't know everything, "That still doesn't explain how you know these things."

"I'm a spirit, dear boy. I am not trapped in this sac of flesh as you are. I have gone back periodically to keep tags on the prize. Notice the inscriptions on the walls here. With the effects these have, I'm granted the power I need to make my collection even larger. Thank you for waiting for them to warm up."

Saiben was rendered motionless for a second because of the shock. Coron reacted immediately how ever. He flicked the walls and half a dozen needles of metal bounced out. He hit the wall again and they were propelled at Koh with lightning speed. Just before they hit, holes were ripped in Koh's clothes and insect like arms streamed and batted away the needles.

"It is too late to escape anywhere, just except your fate, it makes it less painful." Koh was grinning madly now and Saiben noticed a prickling sensation in the front of his head. The crystals began to glow brighter and the designs on the walls seemed to fill up with the crystals light as if it were a liquid.

The prickling became more and more intense and soon Saiben had a migraine, he looked around wildly fro a way out and saw something strange. Seizu and Narik were one their knees, clutching their heads. How was it he was still able to stand? Then he saw Coron standing and looking around like it was a big let down. How was it that the Blind Seer members weren't affected either?

The answer hit him and it made his vision twinge. He had connections to the spirit world and Coron's power was still heightened because of his stay there. The Blind Seer's spirits had probably been withdrawn at least once, so they weren't affected much either.

Coron was looking around bemusedly, "Is this seriously the best you can do, I mean a light show? You are too nice!"

"Your naïveté is astounding." Koh was laughing now, "Look at your friends! The avatar himself is barely able to stand!"

"Yeah, cut the crap, if you can get us out of here, please do. I'm not going to be able to fight like this."

"Fine, if you insist." Coron shrugged. He slammed his foot into the ground and the metal snaked upwards in a thing line. He caught it and snapped it into more needles, then sent them flying at the Blind Seer members. They all made a hand sign before they were it. Their bodies glowed with same design as the walls for a second and then they collapsed with the needles embedded in their jugulars.

"Did you really have to bring them here? I mean, I just wrecked your nice floor." Coron was taunting Koh because he was better with defense than offense.

Koh took the bait, "They're still alive and can be repaired, your friends on the other hand!" The insect hands streamed out of his side, growing in length with each second. They raced towards the unconscious bodies behind Coron and the crippled Saiben.

The small strip of dirt was all Coron needed. He brought it out and made a wall to block the path of each arm. The walls weren't thick enough to stop them, but it slowed them down. Coron reused the shattered walls and tried to break the arms with sliding slabs, so they'd get pushed in two different directions.

Koh gave a yell and disappeared, leaving a bundle of clothes on the ground.

Saiben struggled to his feet and picked up Narik, "We've gotta get out of here. There's no way that killed him." Coron would argue that Saiben was in no shape to be carrying anyone, but there was no way that an eight year old can carry two people at least three times his age.

They stumbled up the tunnel they'd run through and out onto the plain. Coron raised a platform and Saiben told him the direction of the air temple and they shot off across the field.

The small amount of damage Coron had done to the room had proven fatal to the rest of the compound. The earth he had used to block Koh's attacks had been a vital support beam for the levels below. Now Koh had his men working frantically to repair it. He could not allow Fallen Fire to know what had happened here.

Jouku's ship lowered anchor in the harbor of one of the small port cities that had popped up around Omashu. He disembarked before he got caught up with the rest of Fallen Fire and made his way to the hotel room he'd had assigned. Just as he'd been told, there were documents on his bed that gave him access to the university. He'd be using that a lot. Now he was just wishing fervently that Saiben didn't show himself too quickly.

He knew that he was thinking that so he could procrastinate about rethinking whether or not to hunt him down, but he didn't care. The mere thought of doing that gave him a headache.

He flopped down on his and tried to clear his mind so he could go to sleep, but had no such luck because someone started knocking on his door.

"What is it?" he asked in a tired voice.

"You're here illegally! Please step outside!"

"What the agni is going on?" he thought. It wasn't like Fallen Fire to let something like this happen! If they were discovered he'd never get any leads on his family! He found himself cursing Jericho silently for not being thorough enough.

"That has to be a first!" he thought with a little humor. He stepped out into the hall and was immediately stone cuffed. He was pushed over when the force of it didn't knock him over. Then he was blind folded and slung over someone's shoulder like a sack of potatoes and carried away.

AN: Wow, I have a real knack for leaving loose ends don't I? Oh well, I liked the way this chapter sounded, hope you did too. Let me know if you agree via review! Or even if you don't or are in the gray zone in the middle feel free to! Better yet feel obligated to, see ya next chapter!


	8. Cross Hair

AN: Wow, does no one review this? I mean seriously! I got a few right in the beginning then nothing! If you're reading this then please review! I really like writing this story, but the reviews do actually get me writing in the first place, so please do. Anyway, not much too do with the main characters this chapter, or next actually. You'll need to put up with it though as they are needed to move the story forward.

Chapter Eight: Cross Hair

The blindfold came off, but it didn't help at all. The light shining into his eyes was too bright for him to see anything. The rock cuffs were still there and were even bended to something else, probably the back of the chair he was sitting on.

"Your papers checked out, but you are not authorized to be here as you know. Why did you come hear?" The voice was firm with its question and Dorian could only wonder what was going on. He'd seen Jericho send the messenger hawks off, so what was this all about?

"I should be authorized to be here. You should have received a letter from the High Chancellor of the Fire Nation a few days ago." Seriously, what was going on? He had a nagging suspicion that Blind Seer had something to do with it.

"We've received no letter from the Fire Nation for the past month. Certainly no letter explaining your presence here." His vision was slowly adjusting. He couldn't wait until it was better so he could see who he had to his hit list.

"The hawks might have been blown off course or something. I'd advise you too send a hawk to him about this as we should be authorized to be here." Dorian was getting a little worried now. Their window of opportunity for the instigation was small to begin with and now it was becoming nearly non-existent.

"We will. In the mean time, you'll be under guard."

"Look, we didn't get a lot of time here, so if you could get the message to him faster in any way, that'd be better." Dorian needed answers and he also had an appointment to keep with Blind Seer, so he had to get out of here as quickly as possible.

"Very well, but know that what we have that is faster than a hawk can be blown off course easier."

"I'd tell it to take the eastern current from here. A storm went through there on our way over, it didn't leave much so the wind should be easy there."

"But we're not you are we." Dorian couldn't see the sadistic grin, but he knew it was there, "Send one the usual route, is gimpy back yet?" Dorian could tell there was a nod and he groaned in annoyance. Why did everyone hate them so much?

A few minutes another man walked in and handed Dorian antagonizer a scroll.

He rolled it open and got a frown on his face, "Looks like your hawks did get blown off course. You're free to go." The rock cuffs came off and Dorian stood and noticed his legs were asleep.

"It was a pleasure having the conversation with you. One day maybe I can repay the favor." The man gulped as Dorian walked out. The threat wasn't lost on him.

Dorian rounded up the rest of his squad and left the city after dark. Right on schedule, a Blind Seer operative was waiting for them and motioned for the motioned for the to follow. Once they were out of sight of the city gate, a earthen platform was raised and they started to scream across the plains.

An hour later they came to a halt and were submerged through the earth and came to rest at the back of a tunnel that presumably led to the rest of the base. Once it widened into the first room they saw the cell's leader waiting for them.

"Welcome to my humble abode Captain?"

"Dorian and you would be?"

"Just call me Face. Now then, I noticed you had a little run in with customs. How far has Jericho slipped?" Dorian was amazed by how fast they started digging for information.

"He hasn't slipped the hawk got pulled of course. He's as sharp as ever." Dorian stopped when he heard hammering, and gave Koh a questioning look.

"We're expanding the base. New research lab." Dorian got a smile on his face. He could tell Koh was lying.

"Ming if we go see? I'm the researcher for Fallen Fire, that sort of thing interests me." He knew he was sticking his neck out by telling the researcher bit, but if he could shame them and get away with it Jericho would be quiet happy with him.

Koh hadn't given up yet though, "There's a lot of bending going on in there. You might get hurt, and then what kind of host would I be?"

"Didn't sound like bending to me. Sounded like steel being hammered." He had him on the ropes.

"Fine, you win. The avatar and a group his friends were and they left us with a parting gift." Dorian actually laughed.

He turned around and called out the orders, "One of you send a message to Jouku that he's got a lead. Send a message to Jericho as well. I'm assuming that our gracious host would give our colleague transportation here of course."

"Of course." Koh managed to get out past clenched teeth.

Rorin's boat gave a thud when its hull came down on the snow pier of the North Pole's harbor. He stepped out into the frigid air and had a short intake of breath. It was much colder here than he had thought. Yet there were people walking around with a single layer of clothes on! He sucked up the urge to go and put more clothes on and walked down to meet the reception party.

The harbor would have seemed friendly to most people, but the giant monument to those who fell during the Siege of the North seemed to want to beet Rorin and his men into the ground. The only part that didn't seem to hate them was the part of it that depicted Yue. Her eyes showed forgiveness and more than a little sadness

"We welcome our friends from the Fire Nation." Rorin almost gave a little huff of indignation. They'd sent a spokesman to see them where it was commonplace for the chief to come himself.

"We accept your greetings openly and warmly." Rorin kept the stiff formality to show that it wasn't lost on him. The Northern Water Tribe was supposed to be one of the most welcoming places on earth, yet he'd been sent someone from the old guard. The man obviously had the same problem the Earth Kingdom did: he held grudges that were passed down from generation to generation.

The formalities dragged on longer than Rorin would have liked, but they did and once he'd had an actual meeting with the chief he went to his room and dropped the hole under the carpet in it for the meeting with Maelstrom.

"You're late, mister." The man that Rorin assumed to be guarding the room slurred slightly and stumbled to open the door, dropping his bottle as he did.

Rorin ignored the man and walked through to a warmly lit room where the leader of Maelstrom was sitting, "You might want to consider rationing the booze."

"Keeps them complacent, and the only time they even think about disobeying the rules is when they're about to pass out anyway." The man was sitting in a chair of ice that was covered by furs. He was wearing a cloak that obscured most of his face, but you could still tell he was huge and stronger then a platypus-bear.

"Well, what's the plan for here then?" Rorin asked a little impatiently. Although the man seemed powerful, he also seemed to suffer from sloth.

"Not much of one. Once the instigation happens we'll move into the open and capture the city."

"Where will everyone be stationed prior to this?" Rorin was almost gawking in horror at how unprepared they were for taking over.

"We need some kind of targets so that we can take control quickly. We can't just take over forcibly!" Rorin was ready to let him have it now.

"Hold on. You don't know how things work here. This place is run far differently from the sauna you call home. Everything is far to close knit for anything like what you did before this. The way we do things is the best way to do things around here. Although the chief of the tribe may 'lead' it technically, he's mainly for international relations. If someone falls sick, the rest of the tribe steps in to fill in the gap. You can't take one part out because it's repaired immediately. We seem the way we do because this is the best way to go unnoticed, so don't think little of us."

Rorin was shocked into silence, and eventually the giant tossed him a necklace, "We're not completely unprepared." Rorin looked down at the trinket attached to it. It was a yin-yang with waves superimposed on it. Rorin ran his fingers over the top and it snapped open to reveal a glaring eye in the center of it.

"Everyone that's a friend has one. I'd suggest you as many as you can because we'll be using the chaos to cause as much damage as we can and you'll need someone to watch your back." He waved at Rorin to leave, which he did, dumbfound. Rorin was experiencing a sever case of culture shock. This was not how the meeting went in his head. That man was dangerous and Jericho was seriously underestimating him.

On the opposite side of the world Riley had just touched down at the South Pole. The harbor was the antithesis of the one of the North Pole. Crates were scattered everywhere and boats lined the pier in need of repair. He walked down the plank that doubled as the hull of the ship and was greeted by the chief of the Southern Water Tribes who was a wrinkled old woman.

She wouldve commanded almost none of his respect except that her eyes showed infinite wisdom and equal intelligence. She made him nervous because it seemed like she could read his mind, which wasn't a good thing.

"Welcome to our humble home. Please, make it as your own until you're done helping us get rid of this blot that has infected us."

More articulate than he thought too, "Thank you. Your hospitality bests your reputation. We will do our best to eradicate the arm of the group that has been seeded here, but it may take some time as we only just found out how wide spread they are."

"Well, we may have some leads. Is it possible they've changed their name since coming here?"

Riley's blood went cold, "Not unlikely, why, what have you heard?"

"Well, if you had a name it would be easier to track them down, and let's face it; a name like Fallen Fire would stick out around here like a sore thumb, wouldn't it?" She gave him a wry smile.

This was going to be more difficult than Riley had thought, "Yes you're right. If you could give me a list of any organizations that you know of around here I could send it back to see if we can get a name out of one of the members we have locked up right now."

"That would be a problem. I'm sure you're familiar with the down side of our reputation here. The actual law has very little power here. Everyone goes by their own rules. Thankfully, if any leaders aren't, their gangs usually implode, or are disbanded by the others. Most of the time we live in piece here and everyone is happy."

"That isn't exactly what I expected to hear to be quite honest." Riley admitted.

"Few things places are like what you think before you go there. I would suggest cooperating with them. They may not like you at first, but if you gain their trust, then the group you're after should be gone very quickly. The only place they could hide is the underground and that can be locked up easily if you play your cards right. I wish you luck in your endeavor." Once she was done talking she handed him a packet that had where they were staying in it, along with a few names of people that could be helpful.

Riley pocketed it and left for his room, followed by his men a short distance behind. Their rooms were what they'd expected: Spartan furnishing. Next to the bed was a dust covered nightstand. There was a picture on it that was the hotels claim to fame. The picture was apparently by the founder's great grandfather who had gotten a good luck at Sokka when his ship was going down during the remnants of the whiplash war. Next to it was something that wasn't covered in dust. It was a yin-yang carved out of narwhal-seal bone with waves superimposed on it.

Riley went to pick it up, but when he did he triggered something and there was a bright flash that temporarily blinded him. When his vision returned, there were five other men standing in the room.

A rather chubby one stepped forward to take his hand, "Welcome partner. I think you know the way things are run around here from your talk Naori."

"I assume that was the old lady."

"Yes, now you see the massive undertaking that's been thrown at us. So far, are plan involves to stages, which are unfortunately going to drag on for some time. The first step will be to take the city without worrying about the gangs. We will act as if we've won for awhile despite the gangs hammering away at us. We know they will.

Next, we'll wait for them to become bolder. We'll gather intelligence until we have enough to snuff them out with a swift strike. We'll do a number during the coup, to be sure, but we won't kill them, though we'll act like we have."

"What's the strategy for taking the city? Even with the way things are run here, I doubt we'll just be able to walk into the capitol building."

"You're right of course. Every inch of this pace is controlled by one gang or another. The area around the capitol building is no exception. Naori's own gang controls that and we'll have to fight tooth and nail to take it."

"Wait, she's a gang leader?"

"How do you think she became chief?" Riley couldn't come up with a intelligible answer, so he waited for the man to continue.

"If we can take the capitol building, the city will fall on the surface. We have to be careful though. If Omashu doesn't fall, then they'll be able to send forces to help the gangs, though it won't be called that. If that happens we're finished. For that reason, we also have to take the port to stop any out going messages. That means a divided force split at the front and the back of the city.

I'll be leaving the capitol building to you as there'll be plenty of bending at the harbor once this starts. One other thing: take the Spirit Oasis at all costs. If you can hold it for a little while, then some of the gangs will surrender because of the Koi fish you'll have in your possession."

"Thanks for the tip. We'll be getting into position soon. Best of luck to you." The chubby man nodded his thanks, and then whipped an incendiary at the ground and once the smoke cleared they were gone.

Riley could hear the janitor, muttering outside the room, "Damn fire benders. Been hear for ten minutes and they're smoking the place up already."

AN: This was a really fun chapter to write. I know it'll raise a lot of question, but keep reading book three and you'll figure it out eventually. Okay, probably not, more like book four, but the wait will be worth it, I promise. Please review as well. I haven't gotten one in a long time!


	9. Clouded Vision

AN: Sorry for the hiatus, I would've got this out sooner if I'd have been able to! First, there were the Christmas shackles, then I got some weird bug and I was stuck in my bed until the Christmas holidays ended and I had to go back to school. It came back though, and now at least I'm strong enough I can move around again and not just go unconscious at random moments. Sorry about the sob story. Anyway, the first chapter I neglected to put a captain name in for Saiben's air ball team. I meant to but in Hino, but forgot sorry about that! Here ya go!

Chapter Nine: Clouded Vision

Saiben felt the wind in his hair even before he opened his eyes, which he didn't open. He was still feeling the effects of Koh's weird light chamber and opening his eyes was only going to make it worse.

"You're awake." Coron stated.

"How'd you know? Oww." Saiben's eyes had shot open and he received a sharp pain in the front of his head.

"I already told you. I have the same trick Toph had because of where I was. Your heart rate went up a little when you woke up. That's also how I can bend metal. I feel the impurities and focus on that point to bend it." He still hadn't turned around to actually look at Saiben since he was concentrating on keeping the platform moving across the field.

"How are Seizu and Narik then?" Saiben was nervous about the answer because of how adversely it had affected them.

"Still nothing. They aren't dead or anything, they're just asleep and it doesn't look like they're going to wake up any time soon. What was happening to you guys anyways?"

"I don't know what Koh was trying to do to us exactly, but it felt like your head was going to explode!"

"Right, so how far away from this air temple of yours do you think we are?"

"You've been going all night?" Coron nodded, "Pretty soon then. It's in the back of the mountain range. I'm surprised you can't see them now." Saiben strained his eyes towards the horizon but couldn't make anything out, everything just got fuzzy.

An hour passed and they finally figured out why they hadn't seen any mountains: there was a thick blanket of clouds covering the entire range. The blanket spanned from the tip of the peak right down to the ground, stopping near the beginning of the foothills.

"You mind clearing the way for me?" Coron finally turned around to speak to Saiben.

"You can't see with your feet anymore?"

"I should be able to, but the ground's so damp it's changing all the images." Saiben obliged him and started clearing the fog in front of them with his air bending. When he made the first dent and they entered the fog it closed back in despite Saiben's best efforts to keep it away.

When Coron couldn't see anymore their rock slab stopped moving, "What are you doing? I'm not moving this thing if I can't see anything!" Coron was clearly cranky from the lack of sleep.

"I'm trying, but this fog is weird, watch!" Saiben bended a patch around them clear and tried to hold it, but it filled back in anyways.

"Did Narik not teach you how to bend right?"

"Don't insult him, he's a great teacher." Saiben stopped for moment and saw where this was going, "You were awake all night, so that might be affecting your ability to see. I'll try to get Narik and Seizu up while you're asleep."

Coron looked like he was going to protest, then threw up his arms in defeat and fell onto the ground and went to sleep once he'd made his earth tent. Saiben went over to Seizu first and tried prodding her awake. She flinched a little but remained inert.

Saiben had a better idea for getting Narik up, "You're outside the Northern Air Temple right now." He whispered in his ear. Narik's eyes fluttered open and he stretched and yawned loudly before sitting up and slowly blinked awake.

"Oh man, do I ever have a headache!"

"You can guess why."

"That wasn't a dream?"

"No, now help me get Seizu up."

"You're sure that's a good idea?"

"We're probably going to be walking and I don't think you want dead weight anymore than I do." Saiben proceeded shake Seizu while Narik still declined to help him and move as far away as he could without losing sight of him, which was only a foot or two off of Coron's platform.

Instead of the regular greeting anyone waking Seizu got, she blinked quickly as her eye' adjusted to the light and started rubbing her head, "Uhh, where I am?" She sat up and looked around and saw Saiben sitting next to her, Coron snoozing at the other end of the platform and Narik cowering some way off.

Saiben decided on trying to explain, "Okay, after you and Narik were knocked out Coron made Koh disappear somehow and we got out of there as fast as we could. Since then we've been traveling towards the Eastern Air Temple and now we're stuck here because the ground's too damp for Coron to be able to see with his feet and the fog's too thick for our eyes and my bending doesn't do anything to it. That means that we're stuck walking the rest to it and we didn't want to be carrying both of you, so I woke both of you up while Coron was resting after pulling an all nighter."

"Uh-huh. So do you even know which direction we should go after this?"

"I'm not exactly sure, but I know that the Air Temple is at the back of the mountain range, so we'll just keep heading through the range until we hit the coast. Hopefully the fog will have cleared by then so we can see where we're headed." That satisfied Seizu for the moment.

Narik and Saiben started a joint effort to clear the fog but the effect was the same as when Saiben had first tried. It would work for a minute, then the fog would move in despite whatever Narik and Saiben tried.

A few hours later Coron woke back up and cringed when he still couldn't see. He got up wearily and walked to where the rest of them were sitting.

"The fog still not co-operating?" he asked with an air that matched the mood of everyone else.

"Ya, it's like the stupid stuff is trying to stop us!" Narik whined.

"Well, I say we get moving. You two still have to get this temple for your tournament, don't you?" Coron was still a little vague on the details.

Saiben nodded his head and got up and started through the fog, followed by the other three. Their legs got tired fast because of the incline, but Saiben kept them going; he seemed to be thinking of something. The slope they were on kept getting steeper until there was just rock and a near vertical wall in front of them.

"Saiben, just in case you don't know, it's faster to walk on the ground instead of up a rock wall." Saiben had a feeling that Seizu just didn't want to leave the ground again.

"You don't have to come. The fog should be less thick near the top so it'll be easier to bend out of the way and get a view of where we're going." Before anyone could even do anything he jumped into the air and immediately disappeared from their view. Seizu lay down on the driest patch of ground she could find and immediately went back to sleep. Narik just looked around for minute then decided to join her and went to sleep too.

Coron was the only one doing something productive, though it didn't look like it. It looked like he was just leaning on the rock wall where Saiben had jumped up. He was actually seeing through the mountain to see how far they had to go to the coast, as well as trying to locate the air temple they were trying to find.

Saiben came down a few minutes later and scared the two sleepers awake on impact. "I think I saw it a few more mountains in from here. I can't be sure though, the fog is just as annoying up there as it is down here."

Seizu and Narik got up with a groan and a dark look in Saiben's direction and followed in the direction he'd started off in. Coron was left standing where he was, still leaning against the side of the mountain, not quite done his reconnaissance. He finished a few seconds later and dashed in the direction Saiben had gone.

When he knew he should have caught up with them he started to yell and heard their response a moment later. He started in the direction and called again and received another answer that was abruptly cut off. Going on the only sound he'd gotten, he ran towards them and found them moments later, bound by Koh's arms.

Coron barely hesitated when he saw the situation. He immediately sent Koh flying into the air with a rock pillar from directly below him.

"Does he never give up?" Coron was exasperated and it didn't help that the other three were so white they blended into the back ground.

"Your friends are lucky they have you since you seem to be the only one that's a thorn in my side!" Koh voice echoed from out of the fog. Coron tried to pin point him but couldn't. The fog had made the ground too wet. Koh's arms snaked out of the fog and Coron was barely able to get out of the way.

Saiben knew they needed an idea fast, so the mind set came on and he mentally hit himself it was such an obvious ploy.

"Everyone duck!" He yelled as he sent a ring of fire out from him. The heat from it caused some the fog to dissipate. He continued doing this until another of Koh's arms snaked out of the white and batted him away like he wasn't even there.

Seizu got what he was doing and started herself, but kept an eye out for those arms. Saiben got up a second later and started again. The next time the arms came Coron blocked them. When the fog had retreated a far distance Koh came ripping out of the fog. Now that Koh was actively fighting the fog seemed far less inclined to move back in.

Both of the long arms were launched forward towards Coron who weaved out of their path and managed to grab one and used it to launch himself forward, calling out a pillar of rack towards Koh as he did. When the pillar reached Koh though he batted it away like a ball had been thrown at him.

That didn't really bother Coron much as he sent a shockwave through the ground followed by another pillar aimed at Koh's head. Koh did exactly what Coron thought he would and jumped over the shockwave to get hit by the pillar. Instead of flying backwards because of the hit, Koh flipped over the end of it and sent both his arms flying down towards Coron.

Without any other option Coron put up a wall between himself and Koh which was smashed to pieces as the arms cut through it like butter and he was knocked out immediately.

Koh started laughing maniacally but was forced to stop abruptly because of a fire blast that Saiben had launched at him. Koh snorted at the minor nuisance and lunged at him with both arms. Saiben waited until the arms were almost at him, then ducked underneath and popped up between the two and launched a giant gout of fire from his mouth as he grabbed both arms and pulled on them to try and destabilize Koh so he couldn't dodge the attack.

Koh stumbled forward and was consumed in the fire and was consumed by it immediately. The arms that Saiben was still holding onto dissolved into mud and when the fire died down Koh had disappeared.

With the diabolical spirit gone the fog started to clear and soon there were beams of sunlight streaming through fog. Saiben barely noticed this though because he was crouched over the battered Coron. When he went to go pick him up though the body dissolved like Koh had and Saiben was left with mud covered hands.

A hole opened in the ground behind them and Coron climbed, "The Air Temples on the other side of that mountain." He was still bruised badly from the hit, but it wasn't as bad as the double he'd made.

"You know you could've helped a little!"

"I was making myself your ace in the hole. If you started to get bashed around a little I would've surprised him and it would've ended at that, besides, I've been doing most of the work around here."

"That's not something you consider work load shorty." Seizu was fuming, but it didn't faze Coron at all.

"Wow, do you sound mature. Look, he's not a bender and I doubt he's actually trained himself in any kind of fighting style so he's not really that much of threat!"

"Yet you got hit by him and it could've been fatal." Saiben saw a bit of his mother coming out.

"Look, I told you what I was doing there!"

"And yet you have bruises."

"He moved a bit faster than I thought he could, so what?"

"You only need to screw up once. You're going to get smacked around just as much once your power wanes and you're not going to be ready for it."

"I'll be ready because it diminishes slowly, so quit aggravating me!"

Saiben knew that they weren't getting anywhere and until something happened to change his mind they wouldn't get through to him so he dropped it and started in the direction of the Eastern Air Temple.

Seizu on the other hand wasn't quite ready to drop it just yet, "No, because as soon as one of your plans goes wrong one of us is going to end up hurt or worse. So get your act together and stop acting like you know everything, because you don't!"

If anyone but Seizu had said it Coron wouldn't have been affected. Because she had said it he quieted down and even started to look sheepish. Saiben looked behind him and couldn't tell if he was faking it or not, he had to believe that he wasn't.

Less than an hour later they were at the front peak of the Eastern Air Temple. Saiben and Narik made their first jump and were surprised by Coron's platform rising up with the same speed. Seizu was still closing her eyes because of the extreme speed they were going. You couldn't really tell she was scared, but Saiben now her tells.

Saiben and Narik had the sense to slow down as the approached the top. Coron didn't seem to realize it and stopped abruptly, launching Seizu through the air when he did. She landed a few seconds later on something furry and bouncy: a Sky Bison.

Saiben ran forward to get a better look at it and stopped when Hino stepped out from behind it.

"Okay, what took you so long to get here?"

"We picked up a new friend and a lot of new problems. I need to talk to the elders if I can."

Hino face turned to stone and he walked Saiben towards the council chamber.

"I'd like to bring the new guy. He can help us out." Saiben asked and turned around and pointed at Coron who got the message and ran to join them.

They entered the council chamber and waited patiently for the elde3rs to arrive while Saiben sat and brooded over his growing list of cataclysmic problems.

AN: Hoped you liked it, took a fair while to write. Plz drop me a line, review or a PM. Anything to tell me I've been missed even a little.


	10. The Written Truth

Chapter Ten: The Written Truth

The elders at the Western Air Temple gathered faster than the ones at the Northern Air Temple. Within a matter of minutes the room was full. Saiben was a bit surprised by how many how many of the elders were woman at this temple. There were a few in the north, but they held the majority here easily.

"You said you acquired a new friend and a new problem. I see eth friend, what is the problem." The lady that had spoken was obviously the temples leader. It was also obvious that she had little patience.

Saiben was a little put off with her bluntness and acted accordingly, "Normally you introduce yourself before you start asking questions."

"Young man, I'm 102, I think you'll agree that I don't have that kind of time."

Saiben suppressed his shock because of her age a little anger because of her impatient attitude, "My name is Saiben Hythen, and this Coron Amttim." He left a pause afterwards for her introduction.

The lady bit back some insult and gave in, "My name is Bando, now can we get on with what your problem is?" Only her mouth moved, she didn't trust her face to hold back her anger.

Now Saiben became polite, "Yes, we got side tracked on the way here by the bending tournament. Coron was in it and I saw him get abducted by two people after one of his match. We chased the pair and were ambushed by more of them. Once they were gone we continued chasing the original two and found their hide out. It's a giant underground base. Their numbers are huge and they've been stealing bodies and taking the spirit of the human out of them so their other members can use them. They have enough now to have a small standing army. They also have some advanced weapons and the worst is they're actually be led by Koh, the Face Stealer."

Bando became very solemn and Saiben could tell she was thinking something but couldn't tell what, "You have a real knack for smelling out trouble. We can't just ignore this but the threat Fallen Fire poses is still greater. We'll send some of our own to check the base out and get a more accurate threat level. Did Koh assume any form in particular?"

"In the beginning he used one of a man that was bald except for a ponytail in the back. He was wearing a green rob that was trimmed in gold."

Something clicked in Bando's eyes as she replied, "All right we'll send them immediately. What direction and how far?"

Saiben turned and briefly consorted with Coron before answering, "West-south-west and probably around 200 kilometres (I'm Canadian, so sue me!), maybe more than that."

"All right." She motioned and the nomad standing near the door exited to gather a group to look into this new group." Bando now became less grim, "Now, unless there's yet another problem you sniffed out, the Airball tournament starts at noon tomorrow. You'd better be ready."

"What am I supposed to do until we leave for the Northern Air Temple again?" Coron was playing to the child look and pouting with surprising success.

"Oh, I'm sure we can find something for you to do." Bando had apparently seen through Coron's little charade and he gulped once he saw her grin.

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The next day before the Airball tournament started Coron was assigned the duty of preparing some of the temple. Though the nomads had done their best to repair the damage done to the temple when they'd returned to it, they weren't able to get to some places with the materials they needed and lacked the skills required sometimes.

Coron on the other hand was able to get the materials wherever they were needed and bended them into the proper shape. Obviously Bando had thought the task would've been a little harder for him. He didn't really mind though, it took his mind off of everything for the moment, and it gave a minute to talk with Argent.

"So, what do we know about Koh now? Why can't he see us?" Argent's wispy form had materialized the second Coron had started work.

"The avatar spirit seems to set up a ward wherever he is and stops and spirits from locating him directly unless he lets them. Saiben's even set a few up in places he doesn't want people to know about unintentionally. That being every air temple he's been to, Krix's house, his grandfather's and a large section of the capitol."

"Could Saiben learn to make these?"

"I doubt it. The skill seems innate and no one's noticed until now so he wouldn't even have the help of past avatars to help him. I can't even figure out how to do it." Argent seemed stymied at this and it made Coron smile. Argent sometimes seemed furious when he had a problem on his hands like this, but in truth he really enjoyed it.

"Okay, anything else you want to tell me?"

"Yeah, this ward is stronger than the others for some reason."

"And you can't figure out why, right. Well, I'll talk to him about it later. Probably when I start to teach him earth bending."

"You haven't started yet?"

"You knew that already so don't act so surprised. And have you seen what we've been through since we met up? It hasn't exactly been a walk in the park, contrary to what I make it look like!"

Argent gave a little laugh before he continued, "Well hurry up and finish, I'll what else I can dig up for you about Blind Seer and that enigma they call their leader."

"Good luck with that." Coron called a little louder than he meant to as Argent's form was eaten away by the wind. Coron finished up the repairs and came back down to the ground. The Airball tournament was in full tilt when he got there. Truth be told he had no idea how to play the game, but watching it was entertaining none the less.

The ball was flying around in the forest of pillars so fast he could hardly see it. Occasionally it would streak and would be narrowly avoided by one of the players. Even less occasionally it would streak out of one of the two circles at the ends of the playing field.

The nomads were keeping time somehow because it looked like the game ended suddenly and Saiben started doing what Coron vehemently hoped was just his victory dance and not what how he actually danced.

By the end of the day the teams weren't the only ones who were sweating. The sky had been clear and the sun had beet down on the spectators unmercifully. The team from the Northern Air Temple had one two of their three matches, which put them in second place. Saiben seemed happy with this, probably because in the match they lost he'd creamed the other goalie after sucking the ball back inches from his goal.

When the first and second place teams were given their awards Saiben was a little miffed at what it turned out to be. A pair of weathered looking books were given to the winning teams.

Bando caught his eye from out of the crowd and once the ceremony was over he found her, curious as to what she wanted to talk about.

As always, she wasted no time, "Our scouts came back with the information we needed. We're going to see what else what can figure out with it and figure out what to do tomorrow morning."

"Okay, err, I'm coming right?"

"Of course you are! You're the avatar, aren't you?"

"Sorry, just making sure." Bando was more grumpy than Kurota pretended to be, "Before you go though I have a question: what are the books about, the ones you gave us anyway."

Bando actually smiled when she heard that, "Those are the truth of the great war. Aang and all his closest allies wrote them. They tell what actually when Sokka and Katara found him right up to when Rayk sealed them all away."

"WHAT!?"

"I see Jiakka never told you the complete story of what happened. The story is broken into four parts: Water, Earth, Fire, and Air, in that order. They ironically centre on that element for each book despite being the avatar cycle. We split the four into two groups so that if something ever happened to us there's a better chance the truth survives. We also needed something for the winners of the Airball tournament, so two birds with one stone. You can read Water and Earth, your team won the honour of guarding them anyway, now good day avatar."

"Wait! What did you mean when you said that Rayk sealed them all? He was supposedly on the same side as Aang when he left everybody."

"I'm not going to spoil the end. Just read them, they're quite riveting!" Bando spared Saiben a backwards glance but kept walking towards the council chamber.

Later that night Saiben was in his room and was sitting on his bed leaning his back against the wall. He had just convinced his team to let him read the books and he'd gone to his room to start right afterwards.

He opened it and was slightly shocked. The whole book had been broken in is much that the cover and most of the pages seemed to be almost made of liquid. The ink was as clear as one of his old school textbooks though and he started to read.

'Long ago the four nation lived together in harmony, but then, everything changed when the Fire Nation attacked…'

AN: Somehow it sounds like that should be saved for the last chapter doesn't it? Hope you liked how I worked the show's theme of episodes in there. Popped into my head a while ago and couldn't resist putting it in. Sorry for the inconsistent updates, that'll get better soon, so please wait a little longer. You might be able to stabilize it faster by reviewing though. Those things have mystical powers. o0


	11. Storm Clouds

Instinct's Info: You can probably tell that things are heating up now, but how far do you think it will go? You probably have a good idea with all of Fallen Fire's references to the 'instigation' and the other two cells becoming active. I was really hoping for more reviews than three by this point so please prove me wrong and Review! I'm begging you here, please! The stories half over and I barely have any. This means I don't mind pity reviews, from the looks of things that's all I'm going to get…

Chapter Eleven: Storm Clouds

The only reason Saiben woke when he did was because of the sun's light coming through his window. The light was still bright despite the curtains hanging over the opening. He got up wearily and walked to the little basin in the room and splashed some water on his face in an attempt to wake himself up.

He'd stayed up almost straight through the night reading Water. Bando had been right the books were good. With only twenty chapters in them though, it was possible to finish them in about half a day.

Saiben walked out of his room once he changed and woken up enough to look like he wasn't a zombie. Three steps out of his room and he remembered about the council meeting and dashed off to the council chamber, scaring a group of sleeping lemurs on the way, making them screech indignantly.

The door was already open and Saiben could already hear voice coming through the doorway. He panicked a little, worrying that he was late. The meeting hadn't actually started yet and there were just multiple conversations going on.

Coron was standing off to the side with Bando talking about how he gotten where he'd been and how he'd wound up here. Saiben could imagine embellishing a few points along the way. Narik was recounting their exploits inside the Blind Seer base as well as the fights he'd seen in the bending tournament.

Seizu was tucked away in a corner while being assailed by questions by the braver kids of the temple about her bending and where she'd come from.

Bando saw Saiben come in and nodded at Seizu who promptly scared all the kids away from her for a second so Narik could herd them out.

"All right, now that Sleepy's here," Saiben just rolled his eyes, "we can start get an idea of how to deal with this new group. Riado will tell you what our scouts found out." She indicated one of the only male monks in the room.

"Their base has some construction going on in it. Once we were able to get in we found that a large section of the base collapsed due to the removal of a support beam." He smiled at Coron before continuing, "Their work crews are going at a frantic pace. Now for the bad news: Fallen Fire is there and is cooperating with them. We can assume they're allies. As for why Fallen Fire is in the Earth Kingdom at all. After some digging we found that the two are helping each other in a plan. We couldn't get to many details because only the heads of the two sides actually know the whole thing and our scouts didn't want to risk getting close to them. All we found it is that some event, the 'ignition' is going to happen soon and when it does they plan on using the chaos it creates to try and orchestrate multiple coups in every major city in the Earth Kingdom.

"Once we found this out we sent out messages to all our groups to be on alert for any suspicious activity, but since we still don't know what to look for their reactions will still be slow.

"This is the worst part of the recon report: there are a huge number of people inside the base that aren't members at all. They're being kept there for experimentation. Coron you said that members of Blind Seer could make their spirit leave their bodies correct? Well the process isn't perfected and they lose people every once and a while. They're using these people to try and find the perfect exit and 

return. Leaving hasn't been the problem for them; it's been getting back in. There are hundreds of bodies without any sprit inside of them laying around inside for the members spirits to use if their body rejects them."

Saiben mind started turning and piecing ideas together and he started to murmur to himself before everyone else, "_Jouku's family was taken by Fallen Fire. Fallen Fire has been working with Blind Seer for an indefinite amount of time. Jericho needs a place to put all the people he's gotten rid of. The only reason Jouku's after me is because he doesn't know the state of his family_. Riado did they have a list of the bodies or anything like that? Someone I know disappeared a while ago and they might have wound up there."

"Yes and we managed to get one since it would come in handy against the Face."

"Let me guess, so he could know what their names were in case anyone recognized them. Could I see the list?"

"Yes you may." Raido pulled out a scroll from his robes and blew it over to Saiben. He wasted no time in opening it and running down the names with the mindset. The list was extremely long and one minute of baited breath later his fears were confirmed. Listed together on the page were Hirose, Kihara, and Okimoto Shizuka, Jouku's family.

Saiben rolled up the scroll and tossed it back to Raido while he wiped a small tear from his eye. He felt sorry for Jouku despite knowing that he wouldn't have a reason to be after him anymore.

"You knew someone on that list didn't you." It was the first time Bando's voice had held something other than impatience.

"Yeah, I did." He turned to Seizu; "Jouku won't be after us anymore."

Seizu grimaced and threw here eyes to the floor, "Bastards."

Saiben recovered a minute later and turned on the mindset and thought of a good outline a moment later, "Okay, take our people off of alert. Have them look for something that's going to happen in the Earth Kingdom somewhere that could be used to spark a national crisis. Once we've found it focus our attention there and work to prevent. That'll slow down Fallen Fire and Blind Seer enough for us to counterattack and cripple them."

Bando gave him an impressed look, "Good idea, we'll get on that. You still have something to do however. There's knowledge that you're going to need in those books. I suggest you get through them as fast as possible. Everyone knows what they should be doing? Good this meeting is over."

Saiben left in a hurry and went back to his room to find Earth. Once he had he started it and didn't leave his room again until he was finished it and it was almost time for dinner. He still didn't get what knowledge could be in those books that he needed. They told the truth, but to be honest he didn't really care about that right now.

He found Bando after dinner and decided to ask her, "Where is this knowledge that I need? So far I've learned about all the major royal family that disappeared along with Aang and Sokka. I realize that it doesn't make sense that Katara and Toph would leave, but I don't see what that has to do with our present situation and why I have to read these!"

Bando's voice was infused with calm when she spoke, "There isn't much useful knowledge in the first two books. Everything you learned in them though will come to fruition in three and four. Truth be told, I've only read up to three. Aang made the temple heads swear that they'd only read up to there until an avatar read all of them. He did say that they were our trump so we can only trust him.



"Speaking of which, the winner's of the tournament left shortly after their victory. You'll need to go to the Southern Air Temple to get them. Don't worry, we can handle the situation without you."

"Okay, I'll pack my stuff up tonight and leave in the morning."

"No, we don't have that kind of time. Get Seizu to pack her things. You do the same. I'll have a Sky Bison ready for you along with a driver."

"Wait, we get spotted and why isn't Coron coming?"

"We're revealing ourselves to the world probably within the month. I don't think it'll matter too much if someone sees you. As for Coron, we can't afford to have Ba-Sing-Se fall and he'll be able to prevent that with his inhuman powers."

"Fine, I'll be back in twenty minutes." Saiben dashed off and Bando heard Seizu's yell joy at leaving the temple for solid ground a minute later.

True to his word Saiben was back twenty minutes later with Seizu. The Sky Bison had been fitted with a saddle and their driver was already at the reigns. As soon as Saiben and Seizu were sitting they heard, "Yip-yip" and hurtled into the night sky.

Instincts Info: Now I have an excellent reason for you to review my story: it's my birthday! WOOHOO! All egotism aside now, there will be more on the driver later. Right now there are a few piddly little chapters for me to get out then we can get to the good stuff.


	12. First Sighting

Instincts Info: The insanity starts next chapter

Chapter Twelve: First Sighting

The dragon fly-hummingbird finally had it's wing bandaging done. Krix mopped his brow and sat back. The small creatures were incredibly fragile, not that much could touch them they moved so fast. The poor little thing had found him on his way back from his lectures on cross breeding. He'd rushed back to his home and immediately started to bandage the wing.

The poor thing hadn't been attacked, just overworked to the point it'd crashed. He'd have to have a word with those village elders about how they treated his creatures. Now where had they said their village was? (Mentioned way back in chapter 1!)

He got off his chair and started rummaging through the stack of papers that had replaced his desk years ago. Eventually he found it and looked at the area marked by an 'X' and started to plot out his path to it.

Krix walked out into the sun and was flocked by his animals that were waiting to be fed.

"Okay, so I'm a little late today. I have stuff to do!" This was replied to by numerous snorts or snuffles.

He laughed at them and opened the door to the food store, "Go to town, I'll be back in a day or so, so don't eat too much. That has to last until winter!" He got nods of the head so he packed up a little backpack and started into the forest.

He gradually picked up speed as he made his way through the forest. He couldn't help it, the faster he went the better all the greens blended together. Just another part of nature's beauty.

Even with his inhuman endurance the sprint had still not taken him to the village's location, though he was much closer. Another hour of walking and he hit what he though was the spot. There was nothing there though. Confused by the lack of everything Krix decided on the age-old method of finding civilization: climbing a tree and looking from the top. He might've doubted himself if he hadn't gone far longer distances without checking a compass or anything of that ilk before.

At the top of the tree he surveyed the land and still saw nothing. Then something caught his eye. Not on the ground, but flitting through the air. Another one of the carriers he'd given those old men! He whistled and it immediately diverted course and shot towards at blinding speed, stopping an inch from his face and staring at him curiously.

"Where is your home?" he asked it through a series of chirps and clicks.

It moved and shot a short distance away in the direction of a mountain peak then came back to see if he understood the direction it meant. He nodded and it shot off towards its previous destination.

"Why the heck are the operating out of the mountains, and why did they give the wrong area?" Now thoroughly annoyed at the old men Krix leapt off the tree and started as fast as he could go towards the mountains. He was going to get to the bottom of all this deception.

Krix was out of the forest and across most of the plains by night and continued despite the failing light. His night vision was second to none thanks to all the carrots he ate, and a few other things. He hit the rock plateau that eventually hit the mountain and stopped to take a break. Running across a good portion of the country at break neck speed in a single day tested any animal's endurance and most of his were in better shape than he was.



He slumped against the back of a rock and got out the little amount of food he'd brought with him. Now he wished he'd brought more. He'd gone a lot farther than he'd thought he would've. He was halfway through his modest meal when something flared a little ways away.

Krix peered around the edge of his rock and waited for it to happen again. It did and it was a door opening and the light from inside flooding outward. With the sneakiness of a predator moving for the kill he stole towards the little hut, not a doubt in his mind that it was where his poor creatures were being mistreated.

The next person that opened the door came face to face with a wolf on two legs. They had the standard reaction and stumbled back. For once Krix did the same. There was an arrow on the man's forehead! Krix started to feel lightheaded and it wasn't from the shock. He couldn't breathe and he could guess why.

He managed to croak out before it was too late, "_Krix._"

The lack of air disappeared a moment later and the dark spat Jiakka.

"Is this the message you wanted to tell me about?" Jiakka joked to the air bender who'd first seen Krix. The man didn't laugh; he was as white as a ghost.

Seeing that the man needed time to recover Jiakka turned to Krix, "Sorry about that. I didn't know it was you and we can't be too careful with this place."

Krix only partially heard him between the laughing and crying that was fighting to gain control while he spoke, "_You're alive!_"

"Jiakka gave him a warm smile, "Yes we are and have been for some time and Saiben's doing quite well too, don't worry."

That snapped Krix out of his sentimentality for the moment, "What happened to him? The last I heard he was heading towards Ba-Sing-Se! How'd he wind up with you?"

"Long stories are best left for when there is more time and a better place to tell them. I would assume you have a reason for coming all the way out here in the middle of the night."

Krix got serious as he remembered the reason for his trip out here, "Yes one of the dragon fly-humming bird crosses I gave is injured from overworking. I though you would take better care of them than that."

Jiakka averted his eyes in embarrassment, "It's not through our choice. Things have been getting hectic around the temples and we need their speed for messages. We've been helping Saiben with the Fallen Fire problem. That's why we needed them. But we can talk about this at length later. How would like to be one of the first outsider to be in an Air Temple for over a century?"

"Thank you very much." Krix followed Jiakka off into the night while the remaining air benders in the little hut tried to get some color back into their friends face.

Jiakka turned around suddenly, "Oh wait, I need still need my letter!" He ran back, had it handed to him, and ran back to Krix as they continued into the night.

It took until morning for Krix to be brought up to the temple and to be brought up to speed. He didn't feel tired though because of everything he'd found that night.



Still trying to get more information out of the drowsy Jiakka Krix was trying to keep the conversation going, "So could take a look at the Sky Bison sometime today?"

"Yes, yes. Don't misconstrue this as a lack of manners but I've been awake for 36 hours now and my kemptness is waning fast."

"Okay, but before you nod off you should read your letter."

"Here." With his last ounce of will power Jiakka tossed the note to Krix before nodding off.

Krix opened the letter and started reading; "Jiakka there's been a change in plans. Have your squads look for something that could be used to create chaos. An event coming up or someone making an appearance. Something like that. We have Saiben to thank for the tip again. The kids going to the Southern Air Temple so redirect all letters to him there if you need to.

Best of luck, Bando"

Krix walked out of the council chamber and handed the letter to someone else, "Can you give this to one of your elders?" A nod of the head was given and the nomad walked away. Krix was surprised by how well they were taking his appearance. They seemed at ease around him and very few people in the civilized world were.

Foumeru was handed the letter and quickly scanned it. Next he got some ink and some more paper and may letters to each of the groups that were from his temple. He sent them down to the takeoff point minutes later. He'd also included that they should alert the Southern Air Temple, as that was where Saiben was.

Satisfied with his work he contented himself with a little meditating, until he was hit with a pie Shunso had thrown.

Saiben finished the final page of book three and opened the fourth. Normally he would've liked to take his time but the threat that Fallen Fire could move at any moment was more than ever pressing on his mind.

Once he'd finished Fire that there was something up and Aang had definitely left them a trump. It made it blatantly obvious just didn't tell what it was and how to find it and use it. Now he was going to find out what it was and hopefully it could be used against Fallen Fire or at least let them weather the storm that was coming.

Someone tapped Saiben on the shoulder. He looked up and was offered a plate of food from the Sky Bison rider that had gotten them here. He hadn't been able to tell it was a girl since she'd been bundled up from head to toe to combat the winds that had blasted them on the ride here. Saiben and Seizu had gotten it as badly because the lip of the saddle protected them from most of it.

"You haven't eaten in a while. I though you could use some food." Her voice was sweet and caring. She had long black hair than was frizzy at the ends because of all the time she spent hurtling through the skies last night. Her eyes weren't tired at all despite the time between sleeps and she still had a little sparkle in them

Saiben's stomach answered before he could, but he did anyway, "Thanks, I could use something." She placed the plate down beside him so he could reach while he was reading.

He continued on the book until he was done by which time it was noon. If it hadn't been for all the apples he'd eaten he would've gone out a lot earlier1. As it was though he still felt energized and once he'd finished he knew what he had to do.



He went down to the launch area for Sky Bison and found the rider feeding her own.

She turned when she heard him coming towards her, "Your finished now?"

"Yeah, Aang really did leave us a good trump."

"What it is it exactly?"

Saiben was about to answer when a deafening horn was blown that almost knocked them over.

"Crap, now how are we supposed to go get 'em?" That was the alarm for Fallen Fire activity. Thirty more Air Nomads immediately surrounded Saiben. One tossed him a letter that had probably sparked the alarm and the other gave him his glider.

All of them started getting ready while Saiben scanned the letter, which was what caused the alarm, "Water Tribe Ambassador in Omashu. Production contract shift from Fire Nation to Earth Kingdom. Fallen Fire target, signing in evening. Mobilize combatants."

Saiben let the letter drop, snapped his glider open and struggled to catch up with the other Air Nomads who'd already taken off and were flying as fast as they could.

Instincts Info: Sorry I haven't updated in, like, forever. Just really never got around to it I guess. I'll try to keep them coming but reviews would really help. The reviews I give in exchange are good. Check out MacFie or rldragon for proof! On another note, surprised that Krix is in there? I didn't forget about him and he's needed later. Hope you guys like it. The madness starts ASAP!

1 Apples keep you awake longer than coffee does, just so you know!


	13. Intervention

Instincts Info: Yes, I know, I've taken my sweet time writing this but I just never got around to it. Slight gore factor later in the chapter. Very little, somewhat required. Skip if you want to.

Chapter Thirteen: Intervention

Jouku had sort of a lead on Saiben. It really was very little to go on. Someone 'thought' they might have seen something big flying through the air and with the lack of dragons in the modern world that only left a sky bison and Jouku was pretty sure that Saiben would be involved in any kind of mass transit from temple to temple.

Still, he couldn't be budged from his comfortable position in Ba-Sing-Se's library. He'd found a big comfy chair that he liked and had been going through reams of papers detailing every missing persons report for the last fifty years. By marking them all down he was beginning to get an idea of where the Blind Seer base was.

When he opened the next scroll there was a tiny rolled up note inside of it. He drew in a quick breath when he realized that the Blind Seer emblem was on it. Glancing from side to side to make sure there wasn't a nosy librarian around he opened it and began to read, "Your presence is required at the Blind Seer base of operations. Transportation has been arranged behind the library. Leave immediately."

Jouku practically exploded from out of his chair and was out the front door before anyone realized something was moving. This was his big chance! He could find out about his family if he played his cards right here! This sobered him up and he started to think of all the possible scenarios that could happen if they were alive and if he could get them out. He realized that the chances of breaking out of Blind Seer's base were slim to none and doing so with three family members was next to impossible but his mind ticked on anyways.

It was only when Jouku got to the base that he realized the only reason they would've called him was that there was a lead on Saiben and the Fallen Fire unit was too busy to take it themselves.

Once he was inside he started chancing looks into every room he passed in hopes that his family would be close to the main parts of the base. He didn't see any sign of them though and continued to follow his escort until he reached Dorian.

In a lame attempt to get back at him Koh had him waiting in a cell meant for prisoners. Dorian didn't really care at this point though because of the shameful tidbit he'd found out about Blind Seer.

When the door opened and Jouku stepped in he began, "You probably noticed the repairs going on inside the base once you came in. That was caused by Saiben and that miscreant that he was traveling with. They met up with a high security prisoner here and helped him break out. They met the prisoner around the area that the bending tournament was held so he'll still be in the area. When we make our move he'll surface and you can have your second chance to capture him, or was it your third? I've lost count. Try to pick up an immediate lead now, if not then head to Omashu to nab him." Jouku gave a stiff nod and walked out of the room.

On his way to the area that was being repaired he took a nonchalant look through the cells around him. At first he thought his eyes were playing tricks on him, but the cell next to it confirmed his suspicion. His family was here, but he couldn't help them now. They were all asleep. He'd find some reason to come back here then get them out of here. If he couldn't find one he'd make one.

Hedley, Rorin's second in command, was glad his stint up at the North Pole was over and he was standing on actual ground now. Everything had gone according to plan. He'd kept their avatar substitute hidden so that no one would recognize him and he'd already set him up with his entrance to make sure that people thought he was the actual avatar. He had earth benders that would make it appear that their avatar had come from the ground, a launcher to make it look like he was using airbending to jump and of course the man's own talent of fire bending.



Right now he was actually walking beside the Naeki, the Water Tribe Ambassador, towards the palace so he could get rid of all his luggage, well, not the Ambassador exactly, but the small contingent of helpers he'd brought with him.

There was just one small thing that Hedley didn't like: he'd had to leave most of Rorin's force at the North Pole to swell Maelstrom's force. Currently, he was only working with the small group he'd brought back with him, numerous Blind Seer operatives, which he didn't really trust, and whatever Omashu's Fallen Fire branch had in the way forces, which wasn't much since this _was_ Blind Seer territory.

It didn't matter anyway he looked at it though because all he had to do was kill one person and then his part was done essentially. Every person that was remotely related to security was going to be stationed near the Ambassador and the Earth King so as long as he was able to contain them he wouldn't have any problem taking Omashu.

Saiben and the rest of the Air Nomads skimmed over the last of the peaks that surrounded Omashu and then plummeted into the gorge that surrounded the city. They each pulled up when they were even with the pipes that marked the supposedly 'inaccessible' entrance to Omashu's sewers.

The Air Nomads that had been stationed in the city were there waiting for them and waved them into the chutes. The chutes were a tight fit but the Air Benders had put there excess time to good use by diverting sewage from the chute and cleaning it out.

Nothing was said until they went through a hole that was in the side of the entrance pipe. Once Saiben was through he took a quick look around at the cavern he was standing in. It looked more like a basement than a cave. A flat ceiling and an actual door at the other end gave it a much more hospitable feel.

His attention was brought to a small platform near the back of the room where who he had to assume was the Air Nomads leader was giving them all a briefing, "To those who've just arrived here is our current position: the Water Tribe Ambassador is currently at the palace and will remain there until the time of the signing which will be taking place in the pavilion in front of the palace. The ambassador is here to sign off on a deal about the Water Tribe's primary source of china and pottery and the like. This was traditionally given to the Fire Nation because, well let's be frank, they're much better at it. The Earth Kingdom has been drumming up the old arguments to gain the deal and is viewed poorly by many politicians in the Fire Nation. We have a strong suspicion that Fallen Fire will use this opportunity to make the chaos they need to carry out the rest of their plan."

Saiben couldn't help but voicing a doubt that was gnawing at him, "So you're not entirely sure this is it."

"We are quite sure because when the Ambassador came here a small group of Fire Nation Special Forces came with him for extra protection. With the way things are in your country we believed it to be a very safe bet." Saiben's blood ran cold. The situation was going to be very hard to deal with if Fallen Fire was already that close to their target.

Jouku was ushered through the giant stone slabs that acted as the gateway into Omashu and looked around quickly, expecting to Saiben pop up in front of him already. He knew he was just being paranoid about being so close to his friend again so he tried to push it out of his mind.

He made his towards the core of the city. He realized that actually getting near the ambassador was nearly impossible since he didn't have the same cover as everyone else from Fallen Fire. Still, he got as close as he could without arousing any undue suspicion. By the time he was told he couldn't go any farther he was a considerable way towards the palace.



He wondered around in a circle until there was an area with little security in it, a.k.a. drowsy guards, and slipped through closer to the palace. He was very careful from this point in because to be discovered didn't only mean that Saiben could quite possibly be alerted to him, it would also compromise Fallen Fire's position and that would put his family in jeopardy.

He worked his way closer to the pavilion where the actual signing would take place and looked for a good place to get holed up until the assassination attempt came and Saiben exposed himself.

The little nook he found wasn't the greatest since it was located between an exposed crossbeam and the slant of a house's roof, but it kept him hidden so he stayed there, waiting for his moment.

Saiben was getting the jitters since it was getting near the time when they'd have to intervene. He'd spent most the day with the air nomads strategizing how they would tackle the mess. They'd all come to an agreement on working a few of themselves as close to the ambassador as they could get. Those people would signal when the attempt was given and the rest would move in to support them. In this way they wouldn't expose themselves to early and with the extra distance they'd given themselves they could launch and get up to speeds that would let them move unhindered for the first couple seconds they made contact with Fallen Fire which was all that they'd need hopefully.

So that was why Saiben was crouched down on the top a roof with a pair of binoculars in his hand that were trained on the lightly cloaked air nomads that followed the crowd that followed the Water Tribe Ambassador.

The farther down the sun slipped in the sky the more nervous Saiben got. He took a deep breath and focused on what he would be doing soon, letting all the knowledge of air and fire as well as his limited learning of earth bending run through his head.

Naeki was enjoying his stay immensely, though the roving band of reporters he could have done without. He was hoping since the festivities and the feast were about to begin that they would be preoccupied enough to leave him alone.

He entered the pavilion and went to go sit at his place next to the Earth King. When the other honored guests had arrived the Earth King stood and gave the command to start. There were many different types of entertainment preceding the feast and he found himself drawn into many of the acts.

When the entertainment was winding up a particularly amazing act started. At least he thought it was an act at first. There were dancers performing and then a hole had opened in the ground in the center of them as if choreographed. The moments after that showed it wasn't though as the dancers quickly moved way from it and security started to rush through the crowd towards it.

Seconds later a body shot through the hole into the air to a height that that no regular human could match. It plummeted back down and landed deftly on the ground and casually swung his hands around towards the security rushing towards him. Rock launched out of the ground, scattering them like bowling pins. One made it through and charged at the perpetrator with his spear but it was in vain as the man shot a jet of fire and incinerated it as well as the man's arms.

Next he turned towards the head table where Naeki was sitting and gave a wicked grin, "You know it's my job to make sure the world is balanced and this tips that scale so you only brought this on yourself." Naeki blood ran cold as his mind confirmed the shadowy rumors that the new avatar was a criminal. Now he was headed straight for him. He looked to the Fire Nation Special Forces officer that had come with him but only received another evil grin.

He looked frantically in the crowd for any sign of security coming to help. None was but he saw a bunch of people in the crowd throw there hands up. Next their hoods came off and he saw arrows tattooed over their heads. A curious smile played across his face as he watched them start to come 

towards him. Part of his mind was still suffering from disbelief at what he was seeing. Another part knew they couldn't be part of what was happening and were coming to help him.

If it hadn't been for the gravity of the situation he wouldn't have snapped back to his senses as fast. He did though and brought the water from the water skin around his waist that also served as his belt. He snapped it towards all the Fire Nation personnel around him who immediately moved away and started towards other people running from the head table. Fallen Fire took many of them down before they knew what was even happening.

Saiben saw the hands go up and launched himself faster than he ever thought possible at the man that was somehow posing as himself. He knew that this was probably another attempt by Jericho to frame him and turn the world against him.

The man barely noticed Saiben before he crashed into him and sent him flying skyward. Saiben caught the ambassador's eye and saw his disbelief, the next second he launched himself skyward again after the fake avatar.

Halfway through his jump the fake sent a blast of fire towards him, which he dispersed without even thinking about it and sent another blast of air towards the fake sending him crashing into a statue in the middle of the pavilion.

As the man fell Saiben steadied himself and sent a disturbance through the earth towards where he would land. When he did the earth bounced him back up upwards and before he knew what was happening Saiben had used a gust of wind to fly towards him, used the momentum, and chopped the man's neck making him drop to his knees and cough hysterically as he tried to breath again.

Saiben looked around to see the pavilion in complete chaos. There were security personnel, militia members and air nomads running around fighting off Fallen Fire and Blind Seer's odd puppets that would explode periodically sending bodies flying in every direction.

Next he checked on the ambassador who was being threatened by a small group of Fallen Fire. Saiben was beside him in a second and whipped his collapsed glider around in a tight arc sending a blast of air sending the Fallen Fire members sailing away.

"You're the real avatar I can…_think, no, no, that's not right._"

"Presume?" Saiben offered.

"Yes, that's the word! Many thanks for saving my life, my tribe,"

"With all due respect, wait until we're clear of this crisis before you thank me. They're going for the city not for you anyway." Saiben added without really thinking about it since he preoccupied with blowing a puppet away from them.

Saiben heard the sound of another puppet behind him and spun around, flame daggers appearing in his hands as he did. He struck at the neck to try and disable it. He did, just it wasn't actually a puppet. The fake avatar stood now in something that approached a trance with a huge chunk of his neck missing. The chunk was currently a few feet away and Saiben was staring fixedly at his blood-covered hands.

He couldn't tear his eyes off of them. Even when the man fell forward and bounced off of him making him stumble backwards his gaze didn't shift. His brain had stopped working. He didn't even notice when a flying bison landed beside him and Seizu hopped off along with a few others.



She sized up what had happened it a few seconds, "Get him on the bison then out of here. He needs plenty of time to deal with that."

That never happened though because out of the brawling crowd all around them came Jouku with an expression that would make the reaper flinch.


	14. Lava

Instincts Info: The battle for Omashu continues. If at any point you believe that I've crossed the line into the M rating (I don't think I will) tell me. The last thing I want is my story getting yanked by the admins. Speaking of getting yanked: I don't ATLA in any shape way or form. I really got to start doing that more regularly.

Chapter Fourteen: Lava

Before shock could even register on Seizu's face of seeing Jouku he'd sent a fire blast towards the Sky Bison which made it panic and leap skyward with it's rider fighting for control. Seizu looked around in panic knowing that she didn't stand a chance against him and neither did Saiben in his current state.

Jouku continued to advance at the same steady pace, sending out the occasional fire blast at anyone stupid enough to attack him or anything that got near Saiben. Seizu panic got the better and she wound up and gave Saiben a huge slap across his face to try and bring him back to reality. When that didn't work she grabbed the closest air bender and told him to get Saiben out of there.

It was quite impossible to get out of the city with the massive jets of flames that went after anything sky born, but with the city in chaos it was very easy to hide somebody. As she saw Saiben dragged away she numerous hawks go into the air, but no one shot at them.

Now she understood how one piece of chaos could be used over such a wide area. This would put the other cities on high alert. The time when the militias and armies would prepare themselves would leave them exposed for a short time. Fallen Fire would strike then and cripple them leaving all the major cities undefended.

Jouku dragged her attention back to the present. She had to try to slow him down. She summoned the dregs of calm that were in her and summoned lightning. Jouku realized what she was doing and copied her. The bolts connected and the effect was unexpected. No explosion or fire was created but an incredibly intense wave of heat spread outward from it that set off numerous Blind Seer puppets in the area.

Seizu started sweating immediately and barely noticed when Jouku launched towards her with a contained ball of the heat in his hand. He drew back for a huge punch and drove the ball of heat at her solar plexus (generally, if you get hit there you want to die but don't). A moment before contact his hand stalled. He looked at it curiously, then it flew backwards and it dragged him with it.

The sky bison rider that had brought her and Saiben to the eastern air temple landed besides her.

"Looks like you could use some help." She smiled and chanced a look at Seizu.

"Thanks, but were over our head. I was trying to slow him down."

"Now we have numbers on our side though." She used her glider and sent a giant gust of wind at Jouku.

"NO!" Seizu screamed but it was too late. Jouku sent a blast of fire into it and took over the wind, turning it into a tsunami of fire that charged back at them. The wave engulfed them and they were thrown back to the edge of the pavilion that was over 100 feet away. All either of them knew was blackness. Jouku walked towards and stared at the pair for a long time. He reached down.

Saiben was scrubbing madly at his hands in someone's house. He didn't know who's it was and he didn't care. He needed to get the blood off. He was vaguely aware of someone tapping him on the shoulder. He didn't turn around he just kept on scrubbing.



"Avatar, please, listen. Stop washing your hands, there hasn't been anything on them for the past 10 minutes. They're going to be so raw they'll start to bleed on their own soon." Saiben didn't know who was talking but the thought of even more blood was enough of an incentive for him to stop scrubbing.

His eyes slowly refocused and he came back to himself. He was standing in a bathroom with the Water Tribe Ambassador.

"Look, I know that you just killed someone, but for the sake of everyone in this city you have to pull it together." Naeki seemed to be able to think of the words he needed now.

Saiben drew in a shaky breath, "I'll try." Another more steady breath, "Okay, what's happened while I was like that?"

"Well, the city is in almost complete chaos, the pavilion almost clear of any fighting and our main force is…_oh crap, what is that word?_"

"Based." Saiben finished for him a much steadier voice.

"Yes, that's it, we're based at Omashu's peak. Are those people actually air benders?" Naeki asked in disbelief.

"Yeah, they are. I've been living with them since I was chased out of the Fire Nation."

Naeki gave him a accusing look, "Why would that be?"

"The governments being controlled by a shadow organization. They posed as the Special Forces as you found out. What are we doing to regain control of the city."

"We're currently trying to locate the base of these radicals so we can get rid of their puppets. They're causing us a lot of problems."

"All right, I'm heading to the top to see how I can help." Saiben tried to walk and found his legs were still fairly wobbly. He persisted and he walked out of the house with minimal help from Naeki.

The city really was in chaos. There were brawls happening up and down the street. Many of the citizens were even joining the fray. Hitting anyone that they deemed an enemy. Essentially whoever damaged their property. Saiben picked his way through the fights, helping on the way.

When they finally reached Omashu's summit both he and Naeki were winded. The air nomad leader from before greeted them.

"Excellent, we could use your help, and you got the Ambassador out of the pavilion safely, more good news!"

"What do you have to tell you where the Bind Seer base is?" Saiben cut right to the chase.

"The only clue is that we can see where the fighting is most intense, but the area switches around and even when we pick an area after the fighting's been bad we haven't found anything."

"Okay, contact any security forces that are active and tell them to start checking under houses. That's where their other base was so that's probably what's happening. They close the entrance when they start to lose."



"Very well, oh and one more thing. Your fire-bending teacher was brought in. She was supposed to stay with you, what happened?"

Saiben vaguely recalled someone landing near him after he'd called the fake avatar. That must've been Seizu. She'd been the one that had had him hauled out of there.

"I don't know. I'll be at the pavilion looking for her. If you find the base or anything else happens come and get me." Saiben turned around with a bad feeling growing in his gut and flew off towards the pavilion.

He landed and collapsed his glider. This place didn't look like a fight had been here. There were massive burns across the whole area, the buildings on one side had been incinerated and all the statues that were horribly disfigured by intense heat. The odd thing was was that that whole thing was caused by one attack, which was unheard of as far as Saiben knew. Then the answer came to him of what had happened.

Jouku was here. He'd taken Seizu to make Saiben come to him. Saiben could bet he was still trying to help him in his own sadistic little way. He'd be at the entrance to the Blind Seer base. Saiben hit himself in frustration since he knew he couldn't Jouku on, _yet_.

Something made him pause though. There was something where he'd hit his pants. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a copy of the Blind Seer scroll. Riado must've made him a copy! Saiben now had a good idea in his head. The only problem was that people usually didn't like to hear that their family is dead. He just hoped that it'd stall Jouku long enough for him to get Seizu out of there.

Instincts Info: I think I might have underplayed Saiben's trauma here to be honest, or at least the recovery. Please let me hear your opinions, just hearing mine is really getting boring.


	15. Boiling Point

Instinct's Info: I just realized that I'm almost dragging this thing out like a fight from Naruto

Instinct's Info: I just realized that I'm almost dragging this thing out like a fight from Naruto. The only thing I have to defend myself is the fact that each of these chapters has something vitally important in it. This one is the least obvious though. Now: legalities. In case you haven't figured it out yet this is a FanFic, not a show or anything I even get paid to do!

Chapter Fifteen: Boiling Point

Narik and the rest of the air benders never even got a chance to collaborate with the Northern Water Tribe's army. Fallen Fire had caught 90 of the forces in a cross fire when they scrambled to get ready and had forced the remains to hunker down in the remaining garrison.

Narik and the rest had started to try and beat back Fallen Fire anyways, though it was considerably more difficult. Then a saving grace appeared when many of the villagers started to fight back against Fallen Fire on their own once they saw what they were doing.

Narik and a small group managed to get to the chief's building before Fallen Fire got in and dug themselves in so they could defend the Water Tribe's leader. Again, this didn't last long. Fallen Fire burned through the door quickly and didn't stoop there, they continued to burn most of the walls down so more and more of them poured through towards the entrenched air benders.

They were surprised, to be sure, that they were fighting against air benders and it gave them pause long enough for Narik and the rest to push them back out of the building. It didn't last long though and they were soon pushing back in in even greater force.

Then something very strange happened. White and blue uniforms seemed to appear out of the very walls and air around them. Within seconds Fallen Fire and been thrown, literally in some cases, out of the building. It soon became apparent that this wasn't all of them because there seemed to be large-scale fights breaking out in some sections of the city.

The Water Tribe's chief appeared a few minutes later, "I could not believe my eyes for a long time when I saw who was defending our home with us. You have my thanks and my wonder as to how you came to be here."

"We flew here." Narik answered bluntly, "We knew they were going to try this and we came to help stop them."

"We're grateful for the help but the Snow-Snakes will have no problem defending our city." It was implied he meant the people that had saved Narik's group. The Snow-Snakes wore a strange material that seemed to shift between the dark, dull blue that the room they were in was to the white that dominated the never-ending gale on the ice flats over the bay that the city was in. They each wore special glasses to negate snow blindness and had thick clothes on. Each had a spear with a spring-loaded blade to take down fleeing targets and a detachable club on the other end. Numerous others had slings attached to their belts and most of them had water skins bulging on their belts and arms.

One of them came in from outside and leaned to whisper something in the chief's ear and he passed on the message, "I apparently spoke incorrectly. Whatever this group is,"

"They're called Fallen Fire."

The chief didn't show any anger at being interrupted, "Thank you. This Fallen Fire group is a little more vicious than we thought. They've broken into our temple grounds. Although the law may be antiquated we're not allowed to enter the grounds without an invitation by the Priestess, which is out of the question right now. Our laws don't apply to you though so you can enter and force them out of it. We can handle everything else."

"Wait, what temple? We didn't see anything like that on the way here."

The chief looked slightly dumbfounded, "It carved out of the ice escarpment. You can see it on the right as soon as you walk out of here. It's about 20 stories tall!"

Narik gave them a surprised expression and walked to over to stick his head out the doorway. Sure enough there was a huge carved out of the ice with a wide pathway with statues bordering it.

"Whadya know." Narik said dumbfounded. He motioned for the others to follow him and they shot off towards the temple.

"Keep them covered from the top of the wall however you can." The chief said sidelong to the leader of the Snow-Snakes. They disappeared into thin air and he walked out of the building and joined the fray that was engulfing their city,

The air nomads shot over the temple's gate, up the path, and into the temple. Narik hung back for a second to satisfy a gut feeling he had. Rorin stepped out from behind one of the statues that depicted all the priestesses that had belonged here since it was founded nearly 2 centuries ago. A statue of Katara stood prominently at the entrance of the temple.

Rorin proceeded to drag a struggling form out after him. The figure was dressed so ostentatiously that she had to be the Priestess.

"Call your people out of the temple air bender. My men are quite comfortable in there and I'd _hate_ for anything to happen to this most notable person I came across here."

Narik adopted the most hardened face that he could and raised his hand level with the priestess' face, "We aren't the nomads you learned about anymore." His hand closed and the priestess made some gargled noises before she slumped in Rorin's arms.

Narik hadn't killed her, just put her to sleep. He needed to make Rorin think that he didn't have anything to stop him from acting against him. He just hoped it worked.

Narik raised his hand to aim at Rorin's face, which still showed shock on it, "Sweet dreams!" Rorin tossed the limp body away and made a mad dash away from Narik.

Narik scooped up the body less than a second later while being watched by an infuriated Rorin, "Thanks, you saved me the time looking for her!" He shot off and leapt up to one of the towers landings a good seven stories up.

He continued up the face of the building until he landed on the top and was immediately surrounded by Snow-Snakes that seemed to shift in and out of his vision as they stood there. One of them took the limp figure and Narik jumped back to confront Rorin.

When he landed Rorin had something else in his hand. A necklace of some kind was clutched in right hand and his left was raised, ready to blast it.

"Now I _know_ that the people of the Northern Water Tribe are going to be mad if it's your fault that this was destroyed. On a hunch Narik looked behind him and saw Katara's statue and a strangely vacant neck.

Narik used a look like that mixed boredom with a little bit of annoyance, "You have anything else you're going to threaten to destroy while we're at it? I really don't want to have to go through this again."

"You_ will_ call your nomads out of the temple _now_." Rorin shrugged. He knew what was going to happen in a moment when the Snow-Snakes revived the Priestess and got her permission to enter. Sure enough, a second later and Rorin was frozen where he stood and the Snow-Snakes drifted into existence around him. One of them picked Rorin up like a sack of potatoes and pointed upwards signifying that was where they were going to be taking him. Narik bounded back up the ice escarpment to join the Snow-Snakes again.

Things were going badly at the top. When Narik had already broken free of his ice somehow disabled seven of his ten captors. Narik reached the top as Rorin was frozen again. He broke out of the new ice in a whirl of fists and fire where he accidentally let go of the necklace. Narik jumped and grabbed it. He kept catching glimpses of fur out of the corner of his eyes but he couldn't actually see anything.

By the time he hit the ground again Rorin had disabled the rest of the Snow-Snakes and turned his sights on Narik.

"Don't make me do it." Narik warned. Rorin ignored him and sent a blast of fire at him. Narik sidestepped it easily and sent a gust of wind at Rorin who was blown off the lip of the ice and fell the twenty stories to the ground where there was a sickening crunch.

Narik steeled himself and looked over the edge. It was so far down you couldn't actually see anything. Then someone pushed him. He twisted in the air and saw a behemoth with a huge fur cloak draped across his shoulders turn and walk away into the gale.

Narik didn't really care that he'd been pushed. Sure the ground was speeding up to meet him but he could make an air cushion easily. This thought was pushed out of his mind when eight figures rose out of the ice that acted as ground for the entire city and made a giant hole in appear in the ground that Narik was falling towards.

Narik flew through the hole and made his air cushion regardless. He slowed to a standstill for a second then fell the rest of the way and landed with a splash in freezing cold water.

Panic immediately set in and he tried to jump out only to hit a ceiling of ice. The cold was sapping the energy out of him so he tried to make an air bubble out of a zephyr but the air remained as cold as the water. His teeth started chattering and the roof was destroyed and he was hauled out with four people almost crushing his ankles and wrists, which was where they were holding him.

They submerged back into the ice and came out again a moment later on the ice flats off the top of the temple. He had his skull hit hard by a club and he slipped into darkness. He was dumped in the snow and the Maelstrom fighters left him where he was to die.

The Snow-Snakes materialized again and wrapped Narik up in something approaching a bag and disappeared again into the blowing snow.

Instincts Info: Like the Katara reference? That'll be explained at the very end of Book 3 in case you're wondering. Got any other questions concerns or anything, and I stress everything; don't hesitate to use that magical review button at the bottom!


	16. Blaze of the Cinders

Instincts Info: Saiben's suffering from PTSD at the start FYI. I figured that'd happen since that was his first kill. Anyway please review, the following chapters are going to have a lot of fighting in them so if there's something you wanted that never showed up in Avatar do tell and I'll try to accommodate. I don't own ATLA

Chapter Sixteen: Cinder's Blaze

It had begun now. There was nothing he could do about it. Jericho sat at his desk awaiting the reports that his lieutenants would send him about the coups and the current hold of their area. He still had to go and inform Cordow about the initiation though.

Dejectedly he got out of his chair and left the office, telling his secretary he was going for lunch and to hold any messages he received until he got back. He had been truthful; he did get lunch on the way to the safe house. It was only through the act of slopping it on himself did he remember to change into his uniform.

True, Cordow already knew that he'd taken the position, but it didn't help to remind him of it. He also had to take into consideration the fact that Cordow didn't know what he was doing with the position. Best to try to keep him in the dark as much as possible.

He entered the safe house, changed quickly and went through the motions of meeting with Cordow. The fireball into the fire pit, then the mad dash and jump into the heart of the flame. This time he actually managed to keep his eyes open, but it didn't matter. They watered when they got too close to the flame so he couldn't see anything anyways.

Cordow was waiting for him, "So it has begun. Your sure that everything will go according to plan?"

"Yes, there is no one that caught wind of it so no one will see the coups coming."

"Very well, it's too late to stop anything now anyways. The other cell leaders have reported to me already. They've assessed the forces you gave them and believe that they have enough to succeed."

"I should think so. I sent over more then the plan called for."

"And why would you do that if it leaves yourself undefended?"

"Not undefended. It's imperative that at least the majority of the coups are successful and I trust my own men more then the other cells."

Cordow gave a cackling laugh that still sounded sing-songy, "You'd do well to try to place some of your trust in others that aren't in your control. You won't always be able to do that."

"I realize that but why try something new when the stakes are high and you can rig the thing?"

"Too true. I'm expecting another report from you one the coups shortly. Please be prompt, I'd hate for you to be late." Cordow raised his hand to revive the fireball. A split second before he did Jericho tried to as well. A fireball blazed into existence and was enveloped by another a second later.

Jericho launched through it and when bounded back into the safe house he let out a yell of triumph. He had a way out of Cordow's dark dimension! He immediately quieted down when he realized that someone might here him. He changed back into his clothes for his political position and left the safe house.



Just before he was at the steps leading to the palace where his office was situated he heard someone call him. An elderly man with a gruff looking face ran up with a young man behind him. It took him a second to realize who the young man was then it hit him. It was that policemen that he'd interviewed about Saiben! What had his name been? An odd one he was sure. Freg Brestel, that had been it!

He gave Freg a curious look and started, "Freg Brestel? What happened aren't you in the force anymore?"

Freg showed a little surprise as well at being remembered, "I'm not on duty right now chancellor. My grandfather wanted to ask you some questions about your political views."

Jericho looked expectantly at the old man to begin, "Er, yes, I wanted to know what you think about all these little shadow organizations that keep springing up. I mean our capital security in that."

"Oh I don't think they're much of a threat right now. We had a major operation to lower that threat a little while ago. Your grandson was part of it I believe."

Kurota turned to Freg, "Why didn't you just tell me that before!?" He shook his head and turned back to Jericho, "I didn't think there had been with the Special Forces still being here and all, or were they moved out?"

"Some of them were. There's still about a third stationed here. The rest have been reassigned. They weren't to counteract that specific problem anyway. Now if you'll excuse me I have to go. Appointments to keep, problems to solve." Jericho cut off the conversation before he let anymore slip. Something had just clicked in his head suddenly about Freg and the old man that made him awfully nervous. After all the years he'd been doing his job he'd learned to listen to that instinct.

Freg Kurota went back to the house after that. Their mission had been a success. They now had some numbers to work with. They'd had an estimate of Fallen Fire's numbers and now that they knew about a third of them were still here they could factor in all the other different areas of manpower as well as their own. From there they could start to plan their next move against the High Chancellor.

They were interrupted by a knock at the door. They both froze in place, staring at the door in fear. Finally, Freg nerved himself to go and answer it. Casson (way back in Cinder chappie #5. Saiben's gym teacher) was standing outside with a group of other people.

He scanned the area around them quickly, "I found some more recruits. Can we come in?"

Freg nodded quickly and motioned for them to enter. When they were inside Freg poked his head out the doorway to glance around again then went back inside and locked it. The group had something strange about them, but Freg couldn't figure out what it was for the life of him. There was quite a few of them and they easily filled the house's family room making them number around fifty.

The leader of the group made his way towards Freg and Kurota before he started to speak, "Casson told us about your group when we came here a little while ago. I speak for our group when I say we'd like to join."

Kurota decided to handle the conversation, "Why do you want to join?"

"We've already been wronged by the High Chancellor's men because we were a little open about our nation's position. What you see us wearing right now is all we have."

"Then you're already suspected. Why should we risk the safety of everyone involved in our group for the sake of a few more members? We aren't immune to the kind of strikes the High Chancellor employs."



"True, but you can trust me when you say we're worth the risk." The man was somehow able to combine a smirk with a sense of calm.

"Unless you're all master benders I don't see how." Kurota countered with a grumpy voice.

"Most of are as a matter of fact, but we're not what you think." A number of the people in the room where smiling now. As one they reached up and Freg was finally able to figure out what had set the group apart from regular people. Each of them was wearing a hat or headband. Beneath most of them were arrows.

The leader added smugly once Casson, Freg, and Kurota had a suitable expression of incredulity on their faces, "Saiben says hi."

"How do we know that those aren't just tattoos?" Kurota asked, trying to find a loophole in what he was seeing.

"Actually, they've always been just tattoos. You receive it when mastered air bending. You have a point though." The man raised his hand and blew a gust of wind into Kurota's face making his eyes water. The man kept his extended, "My name is Shunso, nice to meet you Kurota. We have a lot to talk about."


	17. Fall Out

Instincts Info: Don't own ATLA, though I would love to be the owner of some REVIEWS! Come on people tell me you opinion! I don't care if it's a flame; I can use those to heat myself up from the cold shoulder you're giving me!

Chapter Seventeen: Fall Out

Freg, Kurota and Casson had stayed past all hours listening to the harrowing account that Shunso had given them. Now that they realized what they were up against the idea that their little group was standing against it seemed a little absurd.

"They're going to be moving in the other nations very shortly. We're here to try and unseat them in their home base. There's a prime opportunity for this. Jericho will most likely move to consolidate the Fire Nation. He'll declare something along the lines of marshal law. That could be our opening."

"From what you've told us though, someone will just rise to take his place. Nothing would change. He's also got to be pretty strong bender. What's the point?" Freg asked skeptically.

"His chain of command is spread out over the world right now though. There won't be anyone decent to take his place. The rule would crumble and your home would be freed!" Shunso answered emphatically.

"I have to admit, it's pretty inviting chance. The only problem is that we can't speak for everyone else in the group. We'll call them as quickly as we can though. If this works can we count on more help from your people?" The situation was invigorating Kurota and it somehow shed years from him.

"There aren't many of us, but yes you could. I can see you wanting to rid your country of them. We will only be able to help you so far. We aren't a standing army and we don't intend to be. We'll help to rebalance the world where we can but not if it involves us acting as an army, not if we can help it anyways."

"So after this you're just going to stop fighting them?" Casson asked incredulously.

"No, what we're seeking to do now is to stop the coups from happening over the world. If we succeed enough then the other nations can sort themselves out."

"All right, at least the three of us are in. Make yourselves scarce and give us an address where we can reach you. We will once we have everyone else's answers." Kurota threw a pad of ash paper to Freg so he could get the information down. Once he had it down they left with out a noise and dispersed into the waning darkness.

Freg turned to Casson, "You know what to do. Go to the usuals and we'll do ours. Reconvene with answers at the school gates at the crush." All this meant was to ask the usual representatives that each of them normally handled. Since the school system had numerous parties it was left to Casson. Freg and Kurota handled the rest. The place they usually met to discuss sensitive information was the school gates when the rush of kids made any adult stand out like a sore thumb. Freg dressed down to fit in and Kurota acted as the guardian. Casson obviously didn't a disguise.

The crush happened every day at 8:25 am sharp, which was about five minutes before the final bell. Also like clockwork Freg, Kurota and Casson appeared in the rush.

"Only a few small groups decided against moving." Kurota spoke in a normal voice. It was safe to do so with all the noise around them; Freg nodded likewise.

Casson had a hard line for a mouth, "We might have a bit of a problem with my area though. Some of the," He stopped abruptly when he saw police coming towards the crush.



Casson continued in a raised voice, "I'm sorry sir, but what you're kid did is against school rules. You'll have to go see the principle." He turned and gave a quick wink at both of them and guided them into the school.

Once they were inside he started again, "Sorry but I can't be too careful. That lot, no offense meant Freg," Freg raised his hands to show none was, "have started to sniff around her again. That doesn't bother me as much as how into this situation some of the teachers have become.

A few clubs at the school have become aware of the problem we have because of the sponsor teachers. The teachers have unintentionally romanticized the problem and the students are viewing it naively. If they try anything without thinking we could blow our cover."

"What clubs are we talking about here? I'll talk to them when I can and knock some sense into them. They are still allowed to join; I'll just try to spook most of them. We'll get the ones that aren't just playing at hero then." Freg proposed.

Kurota gave him a studied look, "We're not trying to mass an army here Freg. Just find out who has actual concerns about what this will do for the country. Take those because they'll act with level heads. That's what's needed to get through this crisis. We don't need martyrs in this."

Casson and Freg nodded their assent and Casson continued, "The rest of the groups are ready to go. One of the teachers agreed with me about the students and offered something along the lines of your plan Kurota. We can use the backdrop of a field trip to get many of us close to the High Chancellor when he makes his speech. Either of you have any other ideas on how to do this?"

"Yeah," Freg spoke in a sarcastic tone, "let's do it fast so the snake can find a rock to crawl under. I'll tell you if I catch wind of any speech he's going to do down at the station. I'll get anyone trustworthy in the same area so we have a hole to rush through."

"All right, fan out and tell everyone the plan and get them set to go. I'll tell the air nomads what we're doing. Agni damn that feels good to say!" Kurota got a shocked look from the other two and tried to regain his composure, "Well, we don't have anything else to do here. Goodbye and good luck Casson." He marched stoically from the room.

As it turned out Jericho had been planning speech in that same week. Freg and Kurota had to work frantically to organize everything, but in the end they did it. They also realized how big their group. It numbered somewhere in the mid 200s.

Many of the groups gathered around the stage that had been set up in front of the police headquarters. Jericho wasn't foolish, he knew to always have a way to defend himself. The one kink that he couldn't have seen coming was that He'd put his speech shortly after school ended. For this reason the field trip plan was scrapped.

When he appeared to start he noted with mild interest that the crowd was larger than normal. He also noted the strange way that there seemed to be small pockets of people that chose to stand closer together. He gave a hand signal below of the podium to the chief of police who went to move more people towards the stage. Jericho knew that most people would call this overkill since the crowd was not allowed to come very close to him. When was gambling with one's life though you could never be too careful.

Freg stood in uniform off to the side of the crowd. On either side of him for three men stood the only straight cops left in the city. They each knew what was going to happen and each knew when the signal would be given.



Front and center of the spectators was Kurota, Casson, and Shunso. It was their job to punch another hole through the police line down to where Freg and his group were. With a hole that big the police line would collapse and they'd have a clear shot at Jericho.

Jericho found it mildly interesting how the crowd behaved as the full force of what he was saying was realized by them. Although his message was essentially that there would be far more rules enforced far more strictly, he said it in such a way that it would take the average passerby time to decipher what he meant. But again, those knots of people gave him pause. They hadn't reacted in the slightest; it was almost as if they'd already known this was coming. He unintentionally focused on a single figure in the front of the crowd. It was the old man he'd spoken to yesterday. He had a much different expression now. He raised two fingers to his lips and gave a whistle, then the crowd became a wave.

As soon as the whistle was given Shunso blasted back the police around him back into the stage where the force knocked many unconscious. Jericho reacted instantly and a moment later hoards of the 'special forces' poured over the side of the stage in droves. This didn't particularly disconcert Kurota at all. It was when a large group of Fire Ants came over the side that he started to panic. Their group didn't have the kind of training their adversaries and the Fire Ants would send people into hysterics.

He called to Shunso, "Take that group out! They'll ruin everything!"

In a matter of seconds Shunso had given the orders and was beside Kurota, "Get behind Jericho and stop him from escaping, we've got our hands full!" A moment later and Kurota was propelled through the air to the back of the stage and landed a few meters in front of Jericho.

"I must say, I'm impressed that you hid a group of this size from me for so long. What are those people doing to blow my men back? It's a nice trick."

Kurota gave a wry smile, "We have another **nation** on our side." Jericho's eyes ballooned outward and he spun around and saw the tattooed arrows.

"I'll give one chance. Let me pass and you'll live." He still sounded in control, but now his eyes were giving him away."

Kurota shook his head, "You obviously don't know my last name."

Jericho wasted no time and sent a flurry of fire rings out in the span of a second. All rotating so that getting around them was impossible.

Kurota started to lecture his strategy, "Fire rings are overrated. They are easily broken." He caught the first in his hand and sent it back, splintering the rest from the barrage. Jericho only grimaced slightly and ignited a tremendous blast from his hand that was as big around as Kurota was tall.

"Whoever has the more intense fire will win in power." Kurota raised his hand and a flickering came out so intense was the flame. Jericho's blast flew away from it like they were magnetic. Jericho was forced to leap out of the way, though his clothes caught fire for a moment because of the heat.

Jericho stood up and gave an annoyed sigh, "You are stronger than I am, there's no doubt of that. Truth be told, I've _never_ actually had to use these before." He pulled a scabbard from inside his gown somewhere and withdrew two broadswords, "Do you know who these belonged to?"

"Someone as equally foolish with an overdeveloped ego?" He was amazed he kept his face straight.



"These swords were acquired years ago. They belonged to Prince Zuko who grew so prodigious that he was able to transfer some of his power to them. As long as I have them no one can stand against me."

"Either that or you're compensating for something." Jericho gave a yell at the verbal jab and much to Kurota's surprise a small bolt of lightning came from the sword, which he narrowly avoided.

"Now you see that I am truly invincible!"

"No. You can shoot lightning like an amateur and it's the swords doing the work which you will drop presently." Kurota took a solid glass ball the size of an apple from his pocket and threw it at Jericho, which he followed up with an intense blast of fire. He jumped behind a section of blasted wall and heard Jericho's scream a second later when the chunks of glass embedded themselves on him.

He walked out to meet Jericho's defeated form and was met with laughter from the warped body, "Hahahaha! You think you've won?! Look around you! This city is still mind despite your efforts. Your fighters are running ragged and you have nowhere to go!" Kurota looked past him and his heart sank. It was true. The Fire Ants had gotten in somehow and the crowd was panicking. People were scattering and everyone one from Fallen Fire was mowing them down like cattle.

"Again I ask: Do you know the last name Brestel?" Kurota's fingers each a flame on them. They shot out in a stream and collided with each other. The produced effect was similar to a stream of magma being shot from the hand. His hands swept up and cut off the Fallen Fire advance wherever it took a solid form. Where the stream touched the ground it dissolved into magma.

Kurota heard painful groans coming from behind him. Jericho had succeeded in rising to his feet and had removed the glass. Blood now oozed from numerous places on his body. He steadied himself then started to jab the swords at Kurota with his weak grip.

"Drop those **now!**" Kurota yelled and summoned lightning that he was sure would end the fight. Heat radiated outward and blew Kurota off the stage and into the fray. He heard a mad cackle as Jericho started to loose bolts into the fight at random, seemingly oblivious to his own men. Kurota started to move towards him again but was blocked by a group of Fire Ants.

Their fist flew towards him. He lowered his hands to the ground and sunk into the melted ground. The fists connected with one another and he jumped out and sent a column of magma shooting out. He turned before he saw them fall. Jericho had seen his performance and gave him a manic look as he swung the swords and blew the stage to pieces and disappeared from view.

Kurota was up on the stage moments later but Jericho was already gone. Evidently the sword's power hadn't quite stolen all his self-control. Kurota took a deep breath and sent two fireballs at the fighters who were trying to jump on him from behind. He opened his eyes and continued to pump out blasts at every target in his sight. He knew he couldn't keep this up for ever, even using normal fire, then, they'd lose the one advantage they had.

Freg and Shunso came out of the tumult a few minutes later both a panicked look, "Going to be honest: this is not going well. I didn't think it was possible to even have a flank in this size of an area but we got flanked anyway." said Freg who was sweating profusely and his walk had an odd gait to it.

"We can cover your escape with a gale. Get your people out of here and we'll follow!" Shunso shouted over the roar of the wind that the nomads were creating.

"No, we can't go! If we fail here then people who stay will have nowhere to place their hope. Jericho would be winning!"



"Gramps, not much of a choice here. We're better to people alive then dead so let's loose agni one more time then tuck our tails get outa here!"

"Freg we can't leave!"

"What happened to 'we don't need martyrs?" Kurota stopped dead in shock. Someone tried to hit him from behind and he kicked his legs out and caught them in the face with a blast.

He righted himself and started giving orders again, "Shunso get the gale going! Freg, tell everyone to make for the opening."

Freg had scarcely formed the words 'What hole?' when Kurota blew a hole through the stage and clear through the police station. Freg stood there in aw for half a second then disappeared into the fight.

Soon there was a general cry for a retreat and people started to move through hole Kurota had made. The gale kept back most of Fallen Fire's attacks but was slowly waning as the air nomads started to leave. This happened quickly and Kurota silently cursed himself for the loss of so many lives.

He held off the encroaching forces for the last member to make it through, then made a moat of lava and set up a temporary wall of flame and fled through the ruined building.

What remained of the short-lived resistance camped roughly 10 kilometers from the city. There had been a few casualties during the escape but Fallen Fire had opted not to chase them outside of the city since Kurota and a few other individuals that had distinguished themselves were freer to move and could really let loose the deadly art that came from their mastery.

Kurota sat alone, denying everyone his company while they had dinner.

Freg was not as easily put out by his attitude and sat beside him anyway, "Don't let what I said get to you. It's hard to keep your head out there and you were…distracted for most of it anyway." Kurota knew he meant Jericho.

"Tell them that they are free to recover at my cottage. I will not join them if they attempt another strike at Jericho. I was irresponsible with them and I won't ley that happen again."

"Look!" Freg's yell startled everyone near by, "You screwed up when the stakes were high, no one's arguing that point. Nothing's going to change that though so get rid of your self pity or at least direct it towards something useful!" He added in a quieter voice, "Most of these people look up to you after all this so don't even think about ditching the group. Your with us 'till the end now so get used to us."

Kurota resigned himself to that fact before he continued, it wasn't easy, "What are we going to do about the air nomads? Jericho knows they're alive now, he'll go after them."

Apparently Shunso had been eavesdropping, "We aren't the pacifists we were the last time war broke out. We can defend ourselves if anyone comes knocking."

Kurota gave him as winning a smile as he could at that moment, "Well do we have any other brilliant ideas?"

"Assassination?" Freg offered mildly.

Kurota pondered the idea a moment before refining it; "Jericho would have heightened paranoia because of our uprising so he wouldn't trust many people. He'll spend most of his time in a secure place where he can figure out how to hit us back. If we can find out where that is we can take him."



"We can keep tabs on him through the clouds to find out his daily routine if he has one." Shunso offered.

"Good, we'll also need to get spies back into the city to track him where you can't see him," He motioned to Shunso, "and we'll also need to scope out the land around the palace so we can have a good way to enter it."

Kurota started into his next sentence and Freg cut him off, "You aren't going back into the city. I know that's what you were going to say. Don't give me that face." Kurota had assumed an arguing face.

"I'm the strongest one here so I can hold my own long enough to get out and I can get into the city easier than anyone here. I'm going."

"No you don't want anyone else to risk their lives so you're stick'n your own neck out."

"Does it look like anyone else here is up for that right now?" Kurota answered in an annoyed voice.

"You mean too much to the group for us to lose you."

"I'm going."

His voice brooked no argument but that didn't stop Freg, "Fine, but you're not going alone then." Kurota knew what he meant and gave him a hard look before he nodded his head dejectedly.

Instinct's Info: No, I did not overdo Kurota there. Yes I meant him to be that over the top. I also know the ending was a little clichéd so if you have any way to make it sound more authentic please tell me, it would be much appreciated.


	18. The Root

Instinct's Info: I've finally started on this story again! It's a good thing I stopped when I did. If you're reading three along with this one the chapters will have far more meaning to them. Just for the record: My book three I would consider to be a hit. Plenty of favourites and a lot of positive reviews. Anyway, the majority of Jericho's past comes up this chapter. I mean his _real_ past, his other one is boring…Oh! Reviews are very welcome!!

Chapter Sixteen: The Root

Jericho entered the office for the day and immediately felt uneasy. Something had been in the room, he was sure of it. The air felt like it had been maimed somehow. He saw the proof he needed on his desk. A letter sealed with black wax in the shape of a sun. He resisted his hand's need to shake and slit the envelope open.

The letter was very brief: 'Coup progress report needed. Report immediately.' If Cordow was getting jumpy then something was definitely wrong, but he hadn't caught wind of anything amiss. Though that protected him from blame ignorance at this stage of the game was deadlier still. He ignited the letter so no one could read it and left the office with the excuse that he'd forgotten something at home.

Jericho made his way through the streets as briefly as he could. The 'riot' that had started yesterday had left the city hushed and on the verge of stating what they all knew but never spoke. Jericho actually feared what would happen if they did. Once it started you only needed to get one outspoken individual that would need to be silenced. The person would become a martyr and rebellion would soon follow.

He kept off many of the main roads to avoid the staring eyes and slipped into a safe house. It was the same one Cordow had used, he could just tell it was. The air had the same maimed feeling, but somehow fresher, if that were possible.

He rid himself of the ministerial clothes that he'd been wearing and decided to patch up the clothe underneath. He hadn't taken off the clothes he'd used since the 'riot'. He probably could have, but the glass had fused some of the fabric to his skin and he didn't relish the thought of having to tear it off.

He pushed the grisly thought from his mind and went through the motions of contacting Cordow. Once he finished he calmed himself enough and simply walked through the fireball this time. His eyes watered immensely, but he kept them open and noticed something. There was a small stone opening just inside the fireball. He filed it away to add to his escape plan should he ever need it.

"Do you know the outcomes of any of the coup déta (I know that's wrong, could someone plz give me the right way?)?" Cordow's voice wasn't panicked like Jericho had expected. It was almost expectant, like he already knew that answer and the question was a formality that had to be taken care of first.

"No, no word has reached me yet about any of them. Have any of the other captains reported anything?"

"No, none of them have, but I'm curious in particular about the one in Omashu. I would like to know how your avatar double played out."

"I could get a report for you in a few days if you so wish."

"No, I'm just curious as to how much longer you going to have to keep using the fake. You've been trying to string me along on that plan of yours for quite a while now. I'm wondering if you managed to secure the real avatar in that coup so you could make your move against me."



Jericho's blood ran cold. How could Cordow possibly know all that? He tried to deny the accusations, but found his mouth, let alone the rest of him, couldn't move an inch.

Cordow gave a hollow laugh, "Your expression never changes Jericho! I've seen that same look three times now! You haven't changed at all, because it always ends the same way: You. Die."

Jericho finally recovered the ability to speak, "How can you know all this? I haven't given away enough for you to know it all!" He paused for a second as all Cordow's words it home, "Wait, I haven't tried anything like this before, and how have I _died_ before?" The fact that his life was basically forfeit now only occurred on the outskirts of his mind. What he was trying to comprehend was how a person could die multiple times.

Cordow gave the same eerie laugh, now longer before starting to explain, "This is the first time I've had to kill you without you knowing. I'm not a cursed man, Jericho, Oh Champion of the Path of Radiance!" He gave a sarcastic laugh as he said the title, "I am Syh-Shen, the embodiment of death! For your past three life times I have neglected to send you back to your roots in Nersh-Ming, thereby preserving my control over you. I've molded you into what is required for years to come whenever I found it necessary to kill you and then brought back the selective memories that I needed." He threw back the hood of his cloak when he finished and Jericho saw for the first time who he worked for.

There was a mass of white hair that had an aversion to going down and seemed to explode of his head. The skin was a sickly purple that wasn't wrinkled, but still had creases everywhere. The eyes weren't sunken like Jericho had expected and even held life, though the energy in them was purely destructive and held no light in it. The nose was large and hooked with deep creases running along its length. As he took in the sight the mouth twisted into a cruel grin that went past where a human smile should be able to which gave the whole face a look of sheer madness.

"Each of your life times had the same problem: you got to big for your boots. Well, the first time it happened, your first life, actually helped me slightly, but the same happened the second time and that wasn't so good. You see these balls of fire that replaced my hands. The last captain of the Fallen Fire cell as his dyeing act did this when he acquired the goal of his research: to find a way to seal away a spirit. That was your second lifetime. Not one to risk it happening again I made a plan for you to follow this time and needed it into your unawake mind. That is why I know everything about your plan: I made it for you! You haven't had a single original idea in your head as long as you've lived this time! Now I have no further use for you. You failed in your attempt to bring the avatar to heel, so now you are done and I must follow through and the remove the curse you laid on me, namely, your death so I can take care of the avatar and bring him under my wing so we can finally achieve the union I've been constructing over the past millennia. Realize I have no resentment towards you. Everyone needs to die and your time is up." The shoulders shrugged uncaringly as the last words were spoken.

"No!" Jericho had regained control of his brain and was preparing to make a fireball that he wouldn't have to maintain for too long, just long enough to get through.

Jericho seemed to almost attain enlighten for a brief second and spoke as if he had, "You're the fool here. You've underestimated me in each of my past lives and you've done the same now. Anyone or anything that backstabs me will meet their doom. This is my last life because you'll be gone before I am." He spoke it calmly as he shifted his stance down. A ring of fire encircled him and it flew upwards in a ball and he disappeared from Cordow's world.

He lost his calm once appeared in the safe house. He grabbed the lightning swords from the chair where they'd landed along with the ministerial clothes and turned to leave as fast as he could.

Then something behind him forced him to stop, "Ah, me. Are you really going to make me make a temporary fusion? Oh well, it can't be helped. Thank you for supplying the gate, it makes this so much easier." Jericho whirled around to see the fireball behind him turn black as night and lose all the 

tongues of flame that engulfed it. There were even brighter patches that twinkled like stars, except they were like lightning behind a purple sky. Then it started to expand outward.

--

First the side door fell. Then the guards did. Freg and Kurota stood over the bodies as they looked around for anyone that may have spotted their entrance. No one was around though so they slowly made their way inside the city. They had progressed a few blocks when they stopped dead in their tracks. There was an inhuman yell echoing off of nothing throughout the city that carried on for a full minute.

People were sticking their head out of windows, trying to find its source. When it had just ended someone turned the corner close to Freg and Kurota. He was practically flying he was running so fast and closing the distance between them with every stride.

Freg's eyes narrowed as the man's details came into view then he saw the giant black and purple sphere engulf the street behind them and continued outwards. Freg's eyes grew wide as he recognized Jericho sprinting towards them. The sphere seemed to hypnotize him though. He couldn't move and it was only when Jericho whizzed past them and grabbed both of them by the collar did he recover and start to run in time with Jericho. They reached the city limits in under a minute with the sphere mere feet behind them. It stopped abruptly and the three of them stopped running just outside the city's limits.

It was only after that Freg and Kurota realized who'd saved them.

Jericho beat them to the punch, "I'm not with them anymore and I'm definitely not with you idiots. I have business to attend to if I'm to take my vengeance on that depraved thing. Good day to you. Slow him down if you can and maybe I'll think of you as a neutral party." That said he swung the swords at the ground and was gone.

--

Instinct's Info: Seriously, read Book Three. Makes this chapter a hundred times better. And please review this chapter as it is of serious importance, not that that isn't obvious…


	19. Ace in the Hole

Instinct's Info: Sorry for the ridiculously long wait. Numerous reasons held me back such as constant thunderstorms, my computer memory being wiped because of them, exams (a while a go), summer jobs, an inexplicable aversion to write, and my inability to find the damn USB key to get the recovered chapters on here. So, again, sorry for the long wait. Please review because we're practically at the end and I'll be starting my revisions very soon.

Chapter Nineteen: Ace in the Hole

Saiben and the other air nomads cruised back slowly from Omashu. Te fight had worn them out. It didn't help that Jouku was riding in the back of a sky bison and his very presence made most of them feel uneasy, Enoko especially. She sat in the saddle of the sky bison with her eyes planted firmly on him in a suspicious stare.

Saiben cruised along side the bison. Partly to make sure Enoko didn't do anything rash, partly to save Jouku if she did.

Someone's yells distracted Saiben for a moment, "Hey! Look at Ba-Sing-Se!" Saiben looked in direction of the pointing hand and almost lost the grip on his glider. The city was aflame and there was an exodus of people running through a gash in its walls. Even from the distance they were flying they could see all the people. The line snaked across the countryside like a row of ants. They numbered in the hundreds easily.

There was also a dust cloud moving back and forth along the line, herding the people along. Partly from curiosity, partly from to make sure it wasn't anything sinister, Saiben dropped down to get a closer look.

The dust cloud was Coron kicking up all the loose dirt along the road to the Serpent's Pass. As soon as Coron spared a look at the sky he stopped and waited for Saiben who plummeted down now that he was expected.

"I couldn't hold it." Coron's eyes were downcast and his voice was bitter.

"What happened though? Too much city for you to help?" Saiben was genuinely concerned. Coron was easily the strongest earth bender he knew and he'd been defending an Earth Kingdom city. He shouldn't have had any problems.

"I'm not sure what happened. I was securing the palace grounds and I saw this weird light across the city. I figured Fallen Fire was trying to get something set up so I went to take it down. There was just this were dome of purple light though. Koh showed up and he was way stronger. He could have crushed all of us." Coron was taking the defeat hard because he still hadn't looked up from the ground.

"And more popped up after that so you had to get out of there. Okay I get it, you couldn't do anything anyways." Saiben tried to console him, hoping his shame didn't last too much longer.

"No, it expanded so I started to help people evacuate! Can't you see it? It's covering the whole city!" Coron raised his head, only to give Saiben a curious look. A few seconds later there was a rush of wind and a purple dome expanded from the center of the city to completely envelope it.

Coron turned around to see what the noise was and didn't see anything new. He turned around again and saw Saiben's shocked expression.

He switched between looking between the two until he addressed Saiben with a single word, "Right…"

"How did you see that?" Saiben was dumbfounded by what he was seeing.

"I have a, shall we say _fresher_, connection to the spirit world. Koh must have been setting up the dome and getting ready to bring it into our world. A closer connection to the spirit world would give him more power." Coron said thoughtfully.

"So they're trying to envelope our world or something?" Saiben blanched at the idea.

"No, inside there isn't the spirit world. It doesn't have any bearing on the geography of our world. I think it would have to be more of a bridge between the two." Coron's shame was fading all the while. Now his head was pointed at the ground and his voice was less bitter.

"Okay, so they're. You know what? Never mind! We're heading back to the Northern Air Temple to meet up with the rest of the teams to see how many cities we saved. They'll want to hear all this and you seem to have a better idea of it than I do."

"Can't. Who else is going to get these people to a safe spot?"

"I'll get some of the air nomads to guide them. Some of them could for a slower pace like this anyways."

"So you managed to stop coup in Omashu from the looks of things."

Saiben missed Coron's shame returning for a moment, "Yeah, we got Jouku on our side while we were there too! He's riding on the Sky Bison way up there!"

Saiben's happiness leaked onto Coron, "Well, I have to meet this scourge you wouldn't keep quite about. Go ask for some help. I'll be below you." Coron lowered his hand that blocked the sun's rays and looked at Saiben with a smirk. Saiben launched back into the air and Coron started off slowly along the ground, just in case someone didn't cover for his escort duty.

Someone did though and Coron launched himself into the air via a rock mound pitching him upwards. He arced forward gracefully, timing his landing on the bison perfectly then faltered when he heard someone near the back of the line yelling.

He touched briefly off of the bison before plummeting back down to flying back down to fix the problem. It was just as well, Enoko had instinctively sent a gust of wind when he surprised her with his entrance.

There was a small knot of people near the back of the line. At the center of them was a woman clutching a child like he'd just been brought back to life. Coron forced his way towards the center of the group, trying to figure out why the woman was crying so much.

He couldn't make it though so shouted instead, "What's going on here? We have to keep moving!"

"Her son just came out of the city! He walked through that shroud like it was water!" A man on Coron's right answered.

Coron's brow furrowed, "That shouldn't be possible. That thing acts as a," There was another cry, this time one of pain. The woman fell over dead with a knife protruding from her that glowed for a second before dimming. The other had seemingly missed it.

"Get off me you sniveling whelp." The kid had spoken, but his voice was too deep. It sounded far to old to belong to him. Then more people started to pour of the shroud, each with cruel expression matching the one the boy now wore.

Coron didn't know what was happening and reacted anyway. The boy was launched back through the shroud and was lost from sight. The next second an earthen wall came from the ground.

Only the little knot of people around the dead woman were left and it was they that Coron addressed in a much quieter voice, "Unless you want to have to deal with those people I suggest you start moving and catch up with the others." He was only half way done when they started to move past him considerably faster than the rest of the line so they could catch up.

Coron turned back towards his wall, fully expecting someone to break it down. No one did though. Saiben landed beside him with a small contingent of air nomads as someone who'd managed to scale the wall crawled over the top and flopped to the ground.

"You guys can take it from here, right?" Saiben joked. They uttered a few small laughs and flung the climber back over the wall.

--

They had to wait quite a while before they were able to land and it was getting on Enoko's nerves. Her bison was getting ready to drop from exhaustion and there still wasn't any room being made. The avatar was with them for goodness sake! That had to count fro something. She cast a sidelong glance at him and quickly averted her sight when he started to turn in her direction.

A few minutes later a small gap was made and Enoko's bison dropped and managed to get itself in the small gap. She jumped off and started to sooth the exhausted beast but it was already asleep. She couldn't blame her though. It was a test of any bison's endurance to stay in the air as long as she had and doing it with the passengers she had to carry Enoko was amazed they hadn't crashed.

The considerable number of passengers were Jouku, Coron, Seizu, Naeki, and a number of the injured air nomads. They quickly unloaded and thanked her and the bison and proceeded towards one of the open spaces located farther up the temple where numerous others were already gathered.

Elders from all the Air Temples were there and were showing the others were they could sit. The others were the Earth King of Omashu, The leader of the Northern Water Tribe, Prime Minister of the Gaoling (spelling?) province, Krix, and Naori, along with a few other people that were notable enough to get a lift here.

"This better have been good enough to drag me away from my people. There's still a fight ravaging my city." You could tell Naori was in awe of the place, but was trying not to let it show.

"We hauled you out of a melting building and the rest of the city was being smashed to bits by Fallen Fire and that other group! There's not much a fight left." One of the Elders said in a peeved tone.

"No one gets how things work up there! Controlling the surface gives negligible power. We were concentrating our forces on the underground. Without that there is no hope of survival!"

"So you would've rather us put you back down outside the building where all the attackers were?" Another air nomad asked mockingly.

Jiakka stepped in before things degenerated any more, "I would like to remind you all why we're here. We gathered anyone that felt they weren't tegral in their area so that we could find a way to repel Black Sun."

"That's what we're doing! Maelstrom won't be able to hold our home for much longer so we don't need help!" Naori was still hot under the collar.

"No one ever suggested that you need help. Others aren't as fortunate though, Ba-Sing-Se and the Fire Nation in particular." Jiakka maintained his calm voice, which very nearly made Naori even angrier.

"Who cares about the Fire Nation? They're the ones that started this whole mess. Leave them until last so we can build up enough forces to flood that Black Sun you keep talking about out of it."

"I'd say that there are quite a few people here that care about the Fire Nation." Saiben had arrived at the meeting and wasn't happy at what he was hearing. Seizu and Jouku had similar expressions on their faces.

Naori calmed considerably when she saw him, "I assume you're the avatar." Saiben nodded confirmation, "Well then, please accept my apology, I didn't mean it like that."

"How did you mean it then? I can't really see a way to misunderstand 'Who cares about the Fire Nation? They're the ones that started this whole mess." Saiben was still staring at her with something that was less than friendly.

"The Fire Nation isn't a vital piece to stop Black Sun. Ba-Sing-Se is though so we need to take care of it first before we go after the bigger fish."

There were murmurs around the group, "I like the idea but freeing Ba-Sing-Se is going to be easier said than done. The spirit Koh created a shroud around it that made the city into a nexus between out world and the spirit world. I don't think you could send a legion of soldiers in even if the walls came down."

The Earth King spoke up, "So what would you do? If we can't even destroy it, let alone retake it how are we supposed to win?"

Coron stepped forward, "There are problems to be taken care of even before we think of that. When Koh made the shroud it pushed out the spirits of everyone still in the city, and I don't need to tell you how big a population Ba-Sing-Se held. The bodies are being filled by the spirits of people belonging to the group called The Blind Seer. He could very easily have a large army at his disposal that we'd have to contend with first."

"We still have most of the world's armies at our disposal. One from the Earth Kingdom shouldn't be a problem." The Gaoling Prime Minister didn't seem to realize the gravity of the situation.

Coron gave Saiben and asking look and received a nod of confirmation before continuing, "You can't kill them though. We've fought against Blind Seer before and they've modified the bodies. The spirits in them can leave easily. You might destroy the body, but another will rise up after it. We'd need a way to stop the from leaving if we're going to have a chance and taking it down."

"Then what would you suggest? You seem to have everything figured out anyway." Naori drawled, clearly peeved because of the eight year old talking to her like an equal.

Naeki came forward, "The Water Tribe Shamans could probably find a way to lock their spirits in, at least temporarily."

Coron started to think again, " As to how to take down the shrouds though…I'm open to suggestions."

"The solution is probably in the Fire Nation. This is where it all started so they must have figured out how to do it there!" Shunso said with a mouth full moon peach. He got glares from everyone present and swallowed as sheepishly as he could as well as being happy to get the offending from his mouth.

Naeki spoke up again, though this time he was more careful with his words, "We might be able to help there. We've been working on a city that, uh, how to say it?"

Saiben didn't even bother addressing him formally, "Floats."

Naeki was stunned and quite suspicious, "Yes, how did you know?"

"You're from the Water Tribes. I don't think you'd be making one that could fly or anything. Don't get me wrong I'm impressed. I don't have a clue how you'd did it."

Naeki relaxed, "Okay, I'll see if we can use that to blockade the Fire Nation until we can land people there to look for the place they did their research."

Saiben seemed to come out of a reverie a moment later, "There may be another way. It could take a while, but we could get some help from, you know, them." Saiben addressed it towards the Air Nomad Elders. Everyone else was a little upset at being left out of the loop.

Jiakka turned to them as if to answer, "It's better you don't know it for the time being. It might cause a little undue strife." This only caused more sour looks, but no one objected further.

"If I'm going to get them I'll need some help." Saiben asked even though he knew who'd be going with him.

Coron tried to throw an arm onto Saiben but the height difference stopped him, "Did you really need to ask that? You still need to learn earth bending and Narik still needs to…where is he anyways?"

"He's still at the North Pole. He was injured, but he's being healed. I have correspondence with them if you want to know more." Naeki picked a scroll out of his pocket to show them.

Saiben returned to what he'd been doing, "Okay, so I have Coron, anyone else?" He asked it hopefully, though he tried not to make anyone feel guilty.

"You'll need a lift to get everywhere, so I guess I'm going." Enoko had appeared on the ledge behind Krix and the Earth King. Her appearance made them jump from their seats like a porcu-mole was under them.

"And I'm going to need some time to figure out how to get back at her for _that_!' Krix gave her an evil grin that didn't really have anything behind it.

"What about you're home?" Jouku asked, blushingly slightly as he did for the last memory he had of the place, "And I'm definitely coming with you."

"Someone tell me why he's not getting the snot kicked out of him right now?" Krix growled.

"He's okay. Black mail threat's over." Saiben held out his hands to stop Krix if he tried anything.

Krix didn't move anymore so most of the eyes turned to Seizu, "I can't teach you anymore, besides, we need someone here to represent the Fire Nation." She said it airily to get to blow over.

Saiben managed to reply calmly, "So just because you don't think you have anything else to teach me you're not coming?"

"Saiben, the larger the group is the better chance it has of being spotted by the enemy and getting slowed down. It's better for to keep the numbers to a minimum. Besides, It'll give you a good reason to get it done quickly. Good luck."

This time Saiben barely managed to keep a straight face. He nodded stiffly and motioned for the others to follow him. They met Foumeru at the bottom of the stairs where he had a amp waiting.

"I think you'll need this." He actually cracked a smile when he said. It made Saiben feel uneasy.

Saiben glanced at it, "Why would she put it there?"

"Would anyone ever stumble across it there?" Foumeru smile became a smirk.

Saiben nodded his understanding and followed Enoko who started to lead the way back towards her bison.

"So what were you talking about up there?" Krix asked, though it came out as mostly a growl.

"I'll explain once we set up camp for the night. It wouldn't be a good idea before that." Saiben smiled apologetically at Krix who narrowed his eyes.

When they got down to the landing area Enoko sat down next to the bison instead of getting on it and everyone stopped, wondering what she was doing.

"She's been flying for most of the day. She'll be good to go in a few hours." It wasn't quite an apology, but everyone accepted it. Krix attempted to smile kindly at her because of her actions and it came across fairly well, though maybe a bit toothy.

Krix was the only one that did something during the two hours that the bison slept. He walked around the great beast looking at every aspect of it drawing up sketches and notes on it. He stopped slightly dejectedly once the bison woke up, but eagerly jumped on her back, peering around the saddle with wide eyes.

"You're going to be seeing her a lot so you don't have to act like that." Enoko was looking at him with an awkward expression. He let out a small laugh, realizing his own antics and settled down. After the other were settled the bison took off towards their first destination.

--

Instinct's Info: I'll clear up all the confusion that should be present with the characters next chapter, which will also be the last. Hope you liked it and I will be revising it. So feel free to tell me anything that needs fixing or could be improved on.


	20. Legacy

Instinct's Info: Last chapters are never fun to write for me. I really liked writing this and ending it for a while is really a downer. But you get to have input! After this done I have two options. I'll either start working on Book Four so I can connect the others stories I have going, or I'd start on the Naruto fanfic that's been buzzing around my head. You decide. PM me or leave a review (please choose the second!) cause I'm leaving this up to you…or the people that read the other story I'm writing right now.

Chapter Twenty: Legacy

Argent sat across from Gredeer in the bog ash e tossed ideas to her and she promptly shot them down. They'd been trying for a while now to figure out why Nersh-Ming kept getting weaker, but so far nothing had come of it.

"What if the population growth is just getting to her?"

"That's the third time you've said that. If the population jumped ten times what it is now for the next seven years it wouldn't normally affect her. She's not giving part of herself, but she still gives life to things." Gredeer stopped for a second to try and think of way to explain that would finally make sense to him, "It's like you breathing out. You can continue to give it, but never run out of it."

Argent seemed to have a light turned on his head somewhere, "I still need to breath though. What if there was a way to stop her from breathing, so to speak? That would put a strain on her because her ability wouldn't be replenished ever."

Gredeer thought for a moment, "That could be it. What is it that replenishes her though? We don't have to eat or anything and people will continue to believe in life, so where does her power actually come from?"

Argent started to talk with no idea where he was going with it, "Well, let's see, breathing is perpetual so as she gives out life something has to be taken away. Nothing's taken away with life though. Maybe it's really like,"

Gredeer interrupted before he could finish his analogy, "Wait. What if it's not what's being taken away, but the action of taking it away?"

"I'm not sure I follow."

"Something that happens that causes life to be taken: death!"

"Oh, so you're saying that for Nersh-Ming to stay strong there has to be more death in the world." Argent realized how stupid what he was saying was as it came out of his mouth.

"Not exactly, just equal amounts. There has to be a balance. The weird thing is that Syh-Shen was complaining about it. The imbalance should've affected him in reverse way. Why should he complain?"

Argent started to feel they were on a role and had no intention of stopping it, "Maybe if it goes on much longer he'll be too 'young' to function." Argent knew he threw a wrench in the works and back peddled to try and fix it, "Wait, is Nersh-Ming doing anything for self preservation?"

"Yes, the birth rate is going down. Why?"

"Syh-Shen is stockpiling life. Think about it: he throws a tantrum for some reason. It only happens when Nersh-Ming starts to hold back. The lack of deaths would make him stronger and who controls that: him!"

"Argent, you're crazy. Why would Syh-Shen be trying to kill his counter part?"

"I don't know. This is the only thing we have right now though, so I say go with it!" Gredeer uttered a say and floated upwards before nodding assent and disappearing. Argent got up off his rock and went to start to see what he could dig up himself.

* * *

Enoko landed her bison in a clearing that had appeared just as the sun was going down. Everyone unloaded what they'd brought, which wasn't much, especially in Jouku's case, and set about getting a camp set up.

A fire had been lit and there were shish-kebabs of roots and other vegetable roasting over it. There was one that had meat on it and that was because Jouku had gone out himself and got some. Krix hadn't seemed peeved about it so it'd been cooked too.

"So," Krix started when they started eating, "what are doing exactly."

Saiben took a deep breath before answering, "We're going to bring Aang and the others back."

Krix blinked and started to laugh, "Is that a metaphor for something?"

"No, Rayk found a way to preserve themselves and Aang took it because he knew this was going to happen. He only wanted the avatar coming to look for him so he and the others hid items that acted as keys. Once you unlock the door then they'll come back and help us."

Krix got up abruptly, "I'm leaving."

"That includes Katara and Toph."

Krix stopped walking, "How does that work? Aang and Sokka betrayed them. Why would they be together?"

Jouku had managed to keep his head during this and spoke out, "History is written by the victors. Lanorit was peeved at them for something and made sure that they'd be remembered badly. Exactly what happened is something that I'm pretty sure that Saiben knows though." He looked up from his meal towards Saiben.

"Okay, the condensed version is this: Rayk learned about the threat Black Sun posed during the coup of the Fire Nation the day before Lanorit's invasion on the Day of Black Sun. That, obviously, wasn't recorded. The invasion ended in a tie, but Aang, Sokka, and the other key players form the Fire Nation were forced to flee because of Lanorit's demands. Toph and Katara stayed behind to act as spies and try to keep Lanorit in check. That didn't happen, which forced Aang and Sokka to come back and silence him. That was the huge scuffle over the Whiplash Wars. Just before that they all realized what Lanorit was doing anyways so Toph and Katara left to rejoin Aang and the others. After that Rayk discovered a way to preserve you body and spirit. They used it so they could help the next Black Sun tried anything big like this."

"That's the condensed version?" Krix was slightly stunned. Saiben held up the four books from his bag so Krix waved him back down.

"So you're saying everything in our history books from the end of the Hundred Years War to the Whiplash war and the abductions was all a big deception?" Jouku's voice remained tranquil the whole despite his disbelief.

Enoko spoke up to save Saiben another explanation, "Hey, the Fire Nation said that we were dead! Are you _still_ going to believe everything you read?" Jouku sat in silent acceptance.

"So, how do we go about reviving Toph, Katara, and the others?" Krix said as he bit off a tuber from his shish kebab.

"With this." Saiben held up the map that Foumeru gave him, "You know how the Bei-Fong family moved into research for a little bit before the Whiplash War? Toph was working with magnetic rock and other weird stuff. She made something called the Lode Stone that acted as a magnet on itself and only to itself. She split it up and attached a small piece of it to each of the items that they used as keys. Once we find it we'll be able to track them down."

"And where would the stone be right now?" Jouku finished his dinner and tossed the stick into the fire, which gave a brief flare.

"She didn't want anyone finding it accidentally so she put it where no one would find it that way: The Cave of Two Lovers."

Coron spoke up, "That's not a problem for us though is it?" He smirked and tapped a foot on the ground.

* * *

The boat had its gangplank down and there wasn't much light inside. The boat was perfect, now all he needed was a distraction…Great! A cabbage peddler! Jericho took a tiny bomb, really only a flare, from his pocket and ignited it. He threw it at the cart holding the cabbage and gave a small grin of satisfaction when it hit the wheel and caused it to jam.

The merchant stumbled into the cart because of its abrupt halt and made it fall over. This created more than enough chaos for Jericho to slip in unnoticed. He made his way straight to the back where the darkness was the most dense and waited for the ship to cast off.

He felt a slight jolt a while later and stood up and groped around until he felt a wall and used it as a guide. He followed the wall until he found the stairs and went up to check on the door. Once he felt it was a dead bolt he smiled to himself and left. A deadbolt would make plenty of noise for warning if anyone were coming down.

Now that he knew that he made a fire in his hand and looked around him. The hold of the ship had boxes stacked everywhere, hopefully some with some food. He tried to peer into some of the stacks, but found it difficult to with the fire in his hand. He looked around for a porthole and melted the hinges off the first one he found and let it fall to the ground.

He climbed up the nearest stack and found a crate full of lava cakes. Not exactly what he'd been looking for, but they'd do nicely. He climbed back down and moved towards the next pile when something fell down near the back of the hold.

He jumped behind the closest crate to block a view of the door and cautiously peered out from behind it. It was still closed, which meant someone else was doing the same thing he was.

He stood up from behind the crates and peered into the darkness, "It's in your best interest for me _not_ to have to look for you." It took a minute, but Codran and two others emerged from the shadows.

"We didn't know it was you Jericho. We thought you'd be dead by now." Codran gave a little bow and straightened and walked to meet Jericho who was still standing near the porthole.

"Why would I be dead?" Jericho was just testing to see how much he knew.

"I heard there was riot at one of your speeches with some talented benders."

"That worries you? I've held off the Fire Ants by myself during training! A few half decent benders aren't anything."

"I heard Kurota Brestel was one of them. That would give anyone cause for concern."

Jericho smirked a little, Codran's intel was good, "He was there and he did live up to his reputation. I had to use the lightning blades and a few other tricks, but he still didn't get me."

Codran smiled before he continued, "That, and the fact that Cordow tried to kill you and put some kind of shroud over the capital."

Jericho actually grimaced, "Yes, that was a close one. Somehow he got wind of what I was doing and tried to get rid of me. I don't know what the shroud did, but it's not going to be enough. I will take everything he has from him." Jericho paused for a moment before realizing something, "Why are you here though?"

Codran didn't even blink, "He came after us too. It appears he double-crossed all of us. He's sided with Blind Seer and they're using their reserves of human spirits to take over bodies. They've been flooding out of the capital since yesterday. They don't seem to tire or even feel anything. We didn't know what was going on until they were scattered through the entire city we were in. It seemed like some people became possessed and started attacking everyone. People scattered and were picked off like flies then carted away. They didn't try that with us though. They just tried to kill us. We barely got out."

Jericho frowned inwardly; he was going into the den of the beast right now if Blind Seer was actually trying to take over. He doubted they'd be where he was going though.

"I'm going to offer you a choice." Jericho had said it to all three of them, "You can come with me if you want, or you can hide with your tail between your legs and wait for someone to find you."

Codran spoke immediately, "I'm hiding. At the rate things are going the entire population of the Fire Nation is going to be a fighting force in under a week and I guarantee that they same thing happened at each of the coups."

"Only two of the coups succeeded, two are still in progress."

"Even then, Cordow is going to have a massive fighting force at his command and the rest of the world is going to be in ruins before he even begins! No one is going to be able to win against him, so hiding sounds like a pretty good option to me."

"Fine, that's you own view, but know this: the world is not in ruins, not by a long shot. The Air Nomads weren't wiped out two centuries ago. They came out of hiding and are drawing the world's remaining armies to them. That gave everyone a slight solace and they drew back together. Cordow is in for quite a fight if he wants to win."

"And you're joining them?" Codran was serious and it almost made Jericho laugh at him.

"No, I'm still taking over Black Sun. I found the root of his power and if what I've learned is correct then I can turn it against him."

"If you can get close enough."

"I don't think that will be a problem. The avatar and world's armies will strike at him. I'll just _help_ them along where they need it."

"My answer still doesn't change. You're chances of successes are infinitesimal. I prefer hiding and a long a life."

Jericho shrugged and nodded his consent. He climbed up and grabbed a lava cake and took a big bite out of it and sat down against the side of the ship, apparently not interested in them anymore.

He really wasn't too. They would have been meat shields for him. He'd have to go through Blind Seer territory at some point; most likely multiple and he'd need someone to distract them if things got sticky. No matter though, he'd get through and he'd find out how he'd sealed spirits life times ago.

--

End of Book Six

Instinct's Info: Yeah I know, same type of ending as Book Five. I've set up for a lot of different things to happen next book. Really hope you review and, seriously, tell me if I should give this a break.


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